Colour consistency across products and suppliers

At Tengbom, colour is an essential tool in creating identity and atmosphere. Whether through bold expressions, such as the pink ceilings in their own office, or more subtle palettes based on historic materials, colour shapes how spaces are perceived and experienced.

Nadia describes the NCS System as indispensable in the design landscape. Its precision and universality allow her team to communicate colour clearly across project teams, suppliers and clients. NCS is integrated from the earliest stages, translating digital brand profiles into physical palettes and ensuring that the final result reflects the intended mood and vision.

Colour as a strategic design component

Colour at Tengbom is more than aesthetics. It is a language for collaboration. Projects often begin with a vision or a mood board that is gradually refined into a colour palette. By using NCS, these palettes can be defined with accuracy and shared across disciplines without ambiguity.

This process strengthens the connection between brand identity and space. In some projects, colour is the primary driver of atmosphere; in others, it enhances materials such as wood or stone. In every case, NCS enables dialogue that is clear and consistent, both within the project team and with clients.

Tengbom’s own office in Hagastaden, Stockholm, exemplifies this philosophy. Designed with a focus on creativity, sustainability and inclusivity, the project involved employees in shaping the environment and encouraged experimentation with both form and colour. The result was recognised with Guldstolen, the Swedish Architects’ award for best interior architecture.

The office demonstrates how Tengbom uses colour to support new ways of working, from hybrid collaboration to informal social spaces. For Nadia and her colleagues, projects like this show how colour, guided by the NCS System, can help create interiors that are both functional and inspiring.

NCS Album 2050

The most central product in Nadia’s colour work is the NCS Album – a large physical colour chart with loose colour samples of all 2050 Standard colours. This serves as the foundation for colour selection in almost every project. Nadia has several sets and almost always starts projects with the albums. They are essential for finding and comparing colour samples, with small colour swatches scattered throughout the office. The albums are Nadia’s absolute favourite, and she wishes she had one at home too.

NCS Atlas 2050

The Atlas 2050 is an important complement to the NCS Albums in Nadia’s and her colleagues colour work. While the albums are their go-to tool, sometimes the small pockets in the albums run out of certain colours – especially popular shades like grey or green. In these cases, the NCS Atlas 2050 use useful as the colours are fixed in place, making it a reliable backup for finding colours when the albums’ loose samples are unavailable. Arranged in the same way as the Album, with the NCS Colour Triangle for each hue, it always provides access to the 2050 Standard colours.

NCS+

In addition to the physical tools, digital resources have also become increasingly important. Nadia and her team regularly use the NCS website and the digital colour tool NCS+. There, they convert client-provided colour codes of other colour standards into corresponding NCS codes. This is crucial when incorporating colours from, for example, brand guidelines into the physical environment. She also mentions that NCS is used to create digital mood boards and visualisations of colour palettes.