More than six million visually impaired people in Brazil have a new way to experience color thanks to a sensory innovation developed by AkzoNobel’s Coral brand.

Working together with VML Brasil and the Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind, the Touching Colors project draws on neuroscience studies, which show that colors also manifest themselves in the brains of blind people through emotions, memories and sensations.

The project uses braille and sound to translate RGB, CMYK and HEX color codes into so-called Cromopoems®, which reimagine a set of 70 colors into a unique sensory experience.

For example, Citrus Orange is described as: “That urge to bite into a fresh fruit in the playground. Letting the juice run down your chin and spending the day with its scent on your hands. That color is Citrus Orange, a vibrant, warm shade of orange.”

Some of the 70 shades from Coral that were used to create the Colors That Touch series of Cromopoems.

Touching Colors was recently shortlisted in the Industry Craft category of this year’s Cannes Lions. 

“We’re giving blind and visually impaired people access to experiences that were previously restricted within the visual universe,” says Alexandre Munck, executive superintendent of the Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind. “By transforming color into sensation, poetry and sound, Coral is contributing to broadening horizons and reinforcing the importance of accessibility as an essential part of innovation.”

Adds Daniel Geiger Campos, global director of AkzoNobel’s Decorative Paints business and member of the Executive Committee, “This project has taken a crucial step on the path to inclusion to ensure that more people can feel and choose colors in an innovative way, going beyond sight to explore new forms of sensory connection.”

The 70 colors were selected from nine chromatic scales in AkzoNobel’s portfolio. From these, initials were created in braille, adding graphic value and establishing a unique creative path for the project’s visual language.

The next step was to assemble the Cromopoems into a color fan that’s accessible to blind and low-vision people. It’s based on three essential elements: color, braille and the sensitivity of the visually impaired person. Printed on black cards, each color in the fan is delivered through the emotions and sensations evoked by the braille text. Spoken audio versions of the Cromopoems are also available. 

The initiative was launched to coincide with Coral’s 70th anniversary in Brazil, hence the palette of 70 colors. To ensure the Cromopoems are also accessible to those who don’t have access to the braille color fan, audio versions of the descriptions in Portuguese have also been made available via a dedicated YouTube playlist.