Color Chips

Read the campaign story

Sherwin-Williams and McKinney launched Color Chips in 2010, constructing imagined scenes from the familiar paint sample card. Contemporary reporting credits Buck NY for animated films and Matthew Sporzynski for print sculptures. A later agency release explicitly places the continuing campaign’s origin in 2010. Annual expressions are grouped here, rather than counted individually.

The sources describe a creative world and routes to colour-selection tools, not a controlled improvement in customer decisions. A beautiful representation of colour does not guarantee that a printed or digital sample matches a finished surface under different conditions. This case examines how a functional category object becomes a distinctive visual language while keeping inspiration separate from technical accuracy and real-world product suitability.

Editorial interpretation: a decision aid already belongs to the customer’s journey, so using it as the creative material gives the campaign a natural connection to the offer. The sample card is both recognisable and flexible. That can help avoid generic lifestyle imagery. The strategic challenge is to preserve the object’s practical meaning while transforming it, so the audience remembers more than the craft of an entertaining miniature world.

Editorial interpretation: visual richness can invite exploration, but an abundance of options can also make choice harder. Inspiration should lead toward a manageable next question rather than simply displaying a larger range. An adaptation might help someone compare a few relevant alternatives, describe a preference or understand a constraint. The campaign’s expressive freedom should therefore be balanced by a clear, accessible information path beyond the image.

Find a category object that carries useful meaning

Look for something customers already handle or recognise during a decision: a sample, checklist, label or simple planning tool. Ask what it represents in the process and why it belongs to the brand. Transform it only in ways that preserve that connection. A visually clever material is less useful if viewers cannot relate it to the offer or mistake it for an unrelated craft exercise.

Credit craft and clarify representation limits

Identify the people responsible for illustration, animation, fabrication and other specialist work. Avoid presenting a digitally constructed scene as a literal physical demonstration when that distinction matters. Explain that visual representations may differ from actual products where appropriate. The campaign can celebrate imagination without implying that every pictured effect, texture or colour relationship will transfer directly to a customer’s environment.

Reduce the next decision to a useful comparison

After the inspirational image, offer a small, understandable set of options or questions. Do not overwhelm the audience with the entire catalogue at once. Provide text labels and alternatives that do not rely only on colour distinctions. Measure whether people can explain why an option suits their stated purpose, rather than treating prolonged browsing or admiration for the artwork as evidence of confident selection.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: build an original digital scene from fictional paper labels for a stationery catalogue, then offer a simple comparison of three organising formats.

Measure recognition of the category, recall of the practical comparison and ability to explain a preference. Compare the imaginative scene with a plain catalogue introduction. Ask whether the creative creates any inaccurate expectation about materials or appearance, and separate visual enjoyment from the quality of the resulting decision.

Stop if the visual system obscures essential differences, relies solely on colour perception or implies unsupported product fidelity or performance.

• Use invented labels and no paint, cutting tools or third-party artwork.
• Provide readable names and non-colour cues.
• State that the scene is illustrative rather than a material-performance demonstration.