The Art of Pastels

Pastels are big right now, to be seen in everything from your ice cream sundae to your dress or furniture. We noticed a lot at London Design Festival, and as fans of this washed out palette, we decided to round up our favourite examples of candy-like colours.

Heather Carson chose light as her medium and in her installations, inspired by Josef Albers, there is a beautiful selection of bleached out colours and pastel stripes.

One of our all-time favourite photographers, Bert Danckaert has an eye for fantastic palettes in every day buildings. There are 100 to explore on his website.

Olivia Boudet’s pastel canvases depict the simplest silhouettes of rooftops, chimneys, towers and houses turning these views into something far dreamier than they are in reality.

As a piece of eye candy it doesn’t get much better than a colour chart, this one is a selection of ceramic testers for Wedgwood – they were on trend back in the late 1800s.

Pastels AND gradients. It’s as though Matti Braun wanted Pinterest to implode when he created his elegant dyed silk panels.

Louise Zhang’s ‘Slosh Samples’ are a mixture of glue, pain, resin, clay, water, varnish and pigment. A heady concoction of toxins which has produced this array of pastel delights. Like a medicine for the oncoming S.A.D..

If only these tiles by Bonny Mably were edible. They resemble the most fun nougat ever, with their pastel swirls and marbled goodness.

Mel Nguyen's clay compositions are so pleasing, like an explosion in a flump factory.

The recent craze for dyeing your pet a pastel colour must surely be attributed to this iconic photo by Tim Walker. Black, white, or tabby just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore.