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From: Clara Montalbán, product director To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter Subject: Fourteen greys before four o'clock Time: 08:06
Nacho, you have eight hours to rename the fourteen greys on the season colour card. The catalogue goes to press at 16:00 and the provisional names read like statements given at a police station: Grey 41, Grey 42, Grey 43. I need names that sell. The formulas are approved, the samples are dry and the photographs are done. Words are the only thing we can still touch. Please avoid "honest grey", "fairly grey grey" and any variant of "it is what it is".
From: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter To: Clara Montalbán, product director Subject: Re: Fourteen greys before four o'clock Time: 08:14
Clara, my professional recommendation is that we keep Grey 41 through Grey 54. They are exact names, they are in order and they are disappointment-proof. The customer opens tin 47 and gets grey 47. Nobody buys a morning by the sea and ends up with a wall the colour of an underground car park. I also need to know why we have fourteen greys. I have lined them up and seven of them look like the same shade seen after blinking.
From: Samira León, laboratory technician To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter; Clara Montalbán, product director Subject: The fourteen are different Time: 08:23
The lab confirms that the fourteen samples are different. We measure lightness and warm or cool bias under controlled lighting. The small differences survive even when your monitor flattens them. Formula 41 has more black in it; 44 carries a blue cast; 49 carries an ochre one. My job ends there. If you decide to call 49 "Whale's Embrace", the spectrophotometer will not be filing a formal complaint.
From: Clara Montalbán, product director To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter Subject: The numbers don't go on the cover Time: 08:37
A name does not only describe the colour; it sets up the scene in which the buyer wants to see it. We tried the same sample with two labels at last year's trade presentation. "Industrial Grey" prompted questions about durability. "Northern Haze" prompted questions about availability. The paint was identical. I don't need lies: I need the name to point attention at a real quality. I want a first list by 09:30.
From: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter To: Clara Montalbán, product director Subject: First honest list Time: 09:12
Here is my first list:
41. Dark grey. 42. Dark grey, but less so. 43. Mid grey. 44. Mid grey with blue. 45. Grey that marketing will call mist. 46. Grey that marketing will call stone. 47. Serious office grey. 48. Office grey that puts fruit out on Thursdays. 49. Warm grey. 50. Warm grey in denial about being beige. 51. Light grey. 52. Light grey with ambitions. 53. Almost-white grey. 54. White that didn't get in.
I have met the objective of telling them apart and I have added a piece of fruit. I consider the creative phase complete.
From: Clara Montalbán, product director To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter Subject: Creative phase reported missing Time: 09:19
Rejected. The chart is decided months before it reaches the shops because catalogues have to be printed, samples prepared, room shots photographed and material sent out to the sales team. If we change a pigment now, we redo tests for coverage, drying, stability and production. If we change a name, we edit one line of the file before it prints. That is why you are here, and that is why you have exactly six hours and forty-one minutes to stop writing "white that didn't get in".
From: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter To: Samira León, laboratory technician Subject: Request for a usable truth Time: 09:31
Samira, I need one concrete characteristic per sample. It can be visual temperature, intensity, behaviour under warm light or any piece of data that stops me christening them with randomly chosen weather events. I promise not to ask you to measure melancholy. Clara maintains that the name must point attention at a real quality. I would like to try that before "Sigh of the Cliffs" ends up on a wall and we all have to pretend we know what colour a sigh is.
From: Samira León, laboratory technician To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter Subject: Data, not sighs Time: 09:48
All fourteen are in the attached sheet. The ones you can use: 41, the darkest. 45, green note. 46, wet stone. 47, violet cast. 52, very faint blue. "Reminds you of" is a human comparison, not a measurement. Do not quote it on a technical sheet, and do not ask me about melancholy again before coffee.
From: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter To: Clara Montalbán, product director Subject: Second list, now with controlled weather Time: 10:26
I have crossed Samira's data with places a person can picture without needing a perfumer's dictionary:
41. Night Slate. 42. Winter Harbour. 43. Wet Square. 44. Northern Steel. 45. Woodland in Rain. 46. Canal Stone. 47. Dark Sorrel. 48. Quiet Platform. 49. September Earth. 50. Mineral Linen. 51. Pale Limestone. 52. January Sky. 53. Open Cloud. 54. First Frost.
Every one of them points at an observed quality. I admit that "Quiet Platform" sells better than "office with fruit", although it offers less vitamin C.
From: Clara Montalbán, product director To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter Subject: They look like colours now, but four of them are fighting Time: 10:41
The direction is right. Change "Night Slate": it sounds like school stationery. "Winter Harbour" works. "Wet Square" reads like a council warning. "Northern Steel" works. "Woodland in Rain" drifts too far from grey and promises green. "Canal Stone" works. "Dark Sorrel" requires the customer to know what sorrel is. "Quiet Platform" works and I hate it for working. The rest can go through to the internal test. Remember that two neighbouring names compete even when the formulas differ: if both tell the same scene, the buyer stops seeing the difference.
From: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter To: Clara Montalbán, product director; Samira León, laboratory technician Subject: How to sell fourteen cousins in matching outfits Time: 11:17
Fourteen cousins in matching outfits, and not one of them named for what it is. I withdraw the numbers, because your test last year is the only thing in this chain that was ever measured with actual people in the room. I withdraw nothing else.
My objection still stands: a useful hint can turn into an absurd promise. I propose that every name pass two questions. Does it relate to a visible quality? Can we say it out loud in front of a professional decorator without lowering our voice?
From: Samira León, laboratory technician To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter; Clara Montalbán, product director Subject: Additional test Time: 11:36
I have put the samples under warm light and white light. Number 42 holds its cool character; 47 loses part of its violet under warm light; 52 looks almost neutral from a distance. Put in the usual warning: check the colour on the real surface under the real lighting. Screen and print do not count. I also asked three colleagues about "Dark Sorrel". Two of them thought it was a horse.
From: Clara Montalbán, product director To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter Subject: The horse is out Time: 12:02
I accept your two questions. Add a third: does this shade stand apart from the other thirteen? You have until 14:00 to close the four rejects and go over the whole set.
From: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter To: Clara Montalbán, product director Subject: Third list and a partial surrender Time: 13:21
Substitutions:
41. Polished Charcoal. Keeps the darkness without promising a lesson. 43. Avenue After Rain. Keeps the neutral grey and improves municipal safety. 45. Storm Moss. Flags the green cast without selling green paint. 47. Quarry Violet. Picks up the measured cast and gets rid of the horse.
I have gone over all fourteen with the three questions. Each name points at a trait, differs from the others and can be said out loud with reasonable dignity. Dignity dips slightly at "Open Cloud", but it still ranks above "Caress of Cement", a proposal I found in the management folder and which I attribute to sabotage.
From: Clara Montalbán, product director To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter; Samira León, laboratory technician Subject: Corridor test Time: 13:47
I ran a quick test with the sales staff: name on one side, sample on the other. They matched eleven out of fourteen correctly. They confused "January Sky" with "Winter Harbour", so change the first one. They also mixed up "Pale Limestone" and "First Frost", but at least both were at the light end. "Quiet Platform" was the most remembered. One salesman said he could picture it on a newly opened station. Nobody asked about the Thursday fruit.
From: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter To: Samira León, laboratory technician Subject: I need to save 52 Time: 14:03
Sample 52 has a faint blue note, it is light and from a distance it reads neutral. "January Sky" competes with the harbour. Give me an image that is not meteorological, mineral, botanical, maritime or railway-related. Clara has used up five families of words in a single morning. I am beginning to understand why companies end up naming colours after cities nobody on the team has visited.
From: Samira León, laboratory technician To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter Subject: The lab declares itself unqualified in literature Time: 14:11
Under the white lamp, 52 looks like recycled paper with optical brightener. I am not proposing "February Invoice", although it meets your restrictions and possesses a demonstrable coldness. You can use "Archive Paper". It is light, slightly cool and distinct from the harbour. My creative contribution ends here. I have to go back to making a hundred litres of formula 47 look like the two hundred before it.
From: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter To: Clara Montalbán, product director Subject: Final list for press Time: 15:02
List closed: the 10:26 one with the four substitutions from 13:21, plus "Archive Paper" at 52. I have touched nothing else.
Fourteen formulas, fourteen names and not one new lab test. I also attach the note asking customers to check a physical sample under the real lighting. And I attach the list of the five families of words we have burned through today — mineral, maritime, botanical, meteorological and railway — in case somebody wants to start straight at the sixth next year.
From: Clara Montalbán, product director To: Nacho Beltrán, catalogue copywriter; Samira León, laboratory technician Subject: Approved Time: 15:19
All fourteen go to press. Product keeps names that sell, the lab keeps formulas that can be repeated, and Nacho keeps nine minutes before the next meeting. I have renamed that meeting "Quiet Platform" to see whether anybody wants to attend it now.