Most people choose a Goodnight Light lamp by shape first. The duck, the pineapple, the daisy, the toucan. The shape is the decision that happens quickly, almost instinctively. Then comes the harder part, and the more enjoyable one: which colour.
We've watched people go back and forth on this more than almost any other part of the process. It's a genuinely fun problem to have, and it's one we think about as much as our customers do.
The Piñacolada: A Nod to the 1950s
When I first designed the Piñacolada, I had a clear vision before anything else: a pineapple in monochrome pastel. Not realistic colours, not green and brown the way an actual pineapple looks, but a single soft tone all the way through.
The reference in my head was the 1950s. Cadillacs in mint and powder blue. Gumball machines. Milkshakes in glass cups. That era had a way of taking something ordinary and giving it a colour it had no business having, and the result was somehow more glamorous, not less. A pineapple felt like the right object for that treatment. It's already a tropical icon, already a little theatrical. Pastel just gave it permission to be theatrical on purpose.
That's why the Piñacolada comes in Ivory, Saffron, Ocean, and the rest of the pastel range. The colour was never decorative. It was the idea.
The Daisy: Lilac, On Purpose
The Daisy's lilac wasn't quite as personal a decision, and we're happy to say so. When we were developing the Daisy, lilac happened to be Pantone's colour of the year. We liked it, it suited the flower, and it felt right to honour that moment. Sometimes the right colour is the one that's simply in the air at the right time.
Eden: Yellow Because It Felt Right
Eden's yellow wasn't a reference to anything in particular. It just felt right, the way the Duck-Duck's original yellow felt right when Marke first sketched it. Some colours don't need an explanation. They arrive with the object and they stay.
What Happens When Someone Has to Choose
Here's what we've noticed, watching people go through this.
Some people match the lamp to their interiors. They know their living room, they know their palette, and they choose accordingly. That's a perfectly good way to do it.
But the choice that tends to work best, in our experience, is when someone picks the colour they simply love, independent of any room. A lamp chosen this way ends up travelling. It moves from the bedroom to the terrace to the kitchen counter, because it was never tied to one space's styling in the first place. It belongs wherever the person who loves it happens to be.
And then there's a third group: people who find the whole decision genuinely difficult; too many good options, too much at stake for what is, after all, just a colour. For them, Ivory is almost always the answer. It's the colour that doesn't ask anything of the room it's in. We see a lot of Ivory leave the warehouse, and we understand exactly why.
The Short Version
Shape is the heart. Colour is the personality. Most people get the shape right immediately and spend a little longer on the colour, which is exactly as it should be. The right colour isn't the one that matches everything. It's the one you'd still want to look at after you've moved it for the fifth time.
