Colour coordination in Danish lights
12 November 2010
In the late 1960s both Louis Poulsen and Fog & Morup launched lines of assorted lamp models in coordinated colours under unifying banners. In 1968 and 1969 Louis Poulsen’s Young Line embraced the company’s Combipendel, Søvaernspendel, Emaillearmatur, Billiardpendel and the Verner Panton-designed Topan and Flower Pots, and was offered in orange, red, turquoise, blue and (for some of the models) white.
Fog and Mørup, meanwhile, launched its Rainbow Line (pictured below) in 1969, bringing together the Falcon, Juno, Zone and Equator in red, yellow, blue and white versions. This was closely followed by the White Line, a counterpoint to the vibrant colours of the Rainbow Line and marketed as “attractive, simple lights [that] can be used in almost any interior, irrespective of colour key or materials”.
The White Line (below) featured the Viking and Junior floor lamps, the Alpha and Corda wall lamps and the Lento table lamp, all of which had been produced previously in other colours or finishes, and the multi-haloed Hydra (centre top of picture), a new light in two versions which would only ever be produced in plain white.
The idea of cross-model colour coordination was in fact deeply embedded in Fog & Morup culture, and had long been pursued on an informal basis, with many lamp models in the early 1960s being produced in three separate metal finishes – aluminium, brass and copper – allowing the customer to choose different models for different areas of the home and still achieve a harmonious look throughout (see, for example, the Lento and Orient table lamps and the Nova pendant light, pictured in the following three images).
Indeed, colour coordination across models was a permanent feature of the F&M landscape during Jo Hammerborg’s reign as director of design through the 1960s and 1970s, the unifying colours changing over time as tastes and fashions altered. The mid to late 1970s, for example, saw F&M models including the Poker, Arabia, Pfister (first image below), Contact (second image below), Bunker, Flora, Markise and Aktiv being offered in various combinations of that period’s key colours of yellow, orange, red, brown, green and white.
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