To Sherwin-Williams, color is personal—it’s human. Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings has partnered with architects for over 150 years to bring their visions of the perfect building to life. With the world’s largest color set of 50,000+, Sherwin-Williams has proven that they can create any color imaginable for their customers.

But in a world of endless color, how do you find THE ONE? "Red" might mean crimson to some, yet a bright apple red to another. Historically, finding the perfect color meant paging through physical color chips, online catalogs or working with a Sherwin-Williams Color Technician— all underwhelming tasks for such an emotional topic.

We created a solution that brings together language, color and innovation—opening architects up to a world of color they never thought possible. We’ve spent years solidifying Sherwin-Williams as the color innovation experts, and knew we could bring architects a bold new way to experience the color selection process.

The perfect color can come from anywhere—a memory, a place or even a dream. We needed to find a new way to bring a color from an architect’s mind into reality. The most natural way to express a thought or feeling is through language. We wanted to encourage architects to describe exactly what inspired them in their own words.

Imagine speaking the words “drinking champagne on the French Riviera at sunset” and in return be provided with a custom color palette that fits your memory. And what if that custom color palette could be fine-tuned to reach the prefect color that exists in your mind? This is what Speaking in Color empowers one of Sherwin-Williams’ most influential audience, architects, to do—with just their voice. This one-of-a-kind color selection solution was conceived leveraging the ultimate combination of the art and science of color making with cutting-edge technology.

The world we live in—our skylines, landmarks and iconic buildings—was born from an architect’s imagination. Color is a crucial component of an architect’s vision — you might even call it an obsession. Even a small color nuance can change how their work is perceived.

We have spent years positioning Sherwin-Williams as a partner who shares architects’ obsession with color. Sherwin-Williams believes that color is a core human experience. It isn’t just the end color that matters, since the art of choosing that color is an important experience all its own. We were inspired to move beyond traditional chip samples and catalogues to create a digital experience that is immersive, interactive and puts the architect in control.

Speaking in Color is a first-of-its-kind, AI-powered color solution that is as creative and forward-thinking as architects, opening up a world of color only Sherwin-Williams can provide.

Speaking in Color is a React web app that uses natural language to find the architect’s perfect color. Over the span of eight months, we took Speaking in Color from idea to prototype to proof-of-concept production. Prior to launch, usability testing was done with select Sherwin-Williams architectural experts to inform enhanced functionality development sprints.

August 2021: Concept identified

September 2021: Prototype image analysis to derive primary color

October 2021: Speech recognition added

Jan 2022: Beta standalone react app

Feb 2022: Proprietary code developed to allow Natural Language Processing adjustments

April 2022: Initial production release

We use a combination of 3rd party and integrated proprietary code to deconstruct spoken or typed language into component parts of speech and use the resulting output to run an image query on Google’s programmable search platform. We then use a version of Google’s Vision AI to derive the composite colors of the images returned collectively, and force-rank the most likely colors according to volume in those images. Our custom algorithm then allows users to tweak the returned color in a way that transliterates statements like “make it dimmer,” “add warmth,” or “more like the 1980s” into mathematical RGB adjustments.

We launched this tool in April to an exclusive segment of Sherwin-Williams’ top architect customers. We are actively testing this tool with this audience to inform the future functionality roadmap.

Speaking in Color will be launched to Sherwin-Williams’ full architect audience in early 2023 via an integrated campaign and exclusive digital activations in coordination with their national sales meeting to gain both internal and external excitement. When app usage reaches critical mass, the system will be trained on lexical inputs to get smarter over time and give Sherwin-Williams a dictionary of how its customers talk about color.

Through active use of this solution, we are unlocking the opportunity to provide a unique, data-driven personalization approach to continue to build meaningful relationships with architects and further demonstrate the brand’s obsession for color. By reinventing the color selection experience, we are showing Sherwin-Williams’ commitment to innovating for architects through color.

At time of entry, Speaking in Color will have officially launched to a small group of Sherwin-Williams’ customers. This initial launch allows us to actively gather user data to impact future releases and fine-tune the technology for its broad launch in early 2023.

When the program reaches mass scale, it will create the largest dataset of color attribution in the world—all owned exclusively by Sherwin-Williams, enabling the brand to literally create color based on how customers search for and describe it.