NIX COLOUR INSPIRATION

Why the colours of NIX were always going to be grey and orange

Some colour schemes are designed.

Some are chosen from a palette.

Some are decided after far too long staring at little squares on a screen. 🎨😄

Mine came from somewhere much simpler.

The road.

The sky.

The places I keep finding myself.

And the moments when the two collide. 🌅🚐📸

They were already there.

I just noticed them.

Grey is the road beneath me.

It is wet tarmac after rain. 🌧️

It is motorway concrete.

It is mountain rock.

It is storm clouds gathering above a campsite.

It is the side of Vanilla parked somewhere miles from home. 🚐

It is metal, machinery, wheels, camera gear, drones and the slightly industrial world that has always felt familiar to me.

Grey is practical.

Solid.

Mechanical.

Unfussy.

And I love that.

There is something brilliantly understated about a dark graphite grey.

It does not shout.

It just sits there looking purposeful. 😎

That is exactly what I wanted NIX to feel like.

Not glossy for the sake of it.

Not decorated to death.

Just strong, clean and ready to go.

And this is where everything changes.

Because grey on its own would be far too sensible. 😂

Then the sun drops.

The horizon catches fire.

The clouds start glowing.

And suddenly the whole scene is alive. 🌅🔥

That orange light is one of my favourite things to photograph.

It appears for a few minutes and completely transforms an ordinary place.

A road becomes cinematic.

A field becomes dramatic.

A van parked in a lay-by suddenly looks like the start of an expedition.

That is what orange means to me.

Energy. Movement. Adventure.

It is the bit that makes the grey come alive.

Some of my favourite NIX moments happen when those two colours meet naturally.

Dark road.

Grey van.

Muted landscape.

Then one huge burst of orange across the sky. 🩶🧡

That combination has become almost impossible for me not to notice now.

Whenever I see a good sunset reflected in wet tarmac, or orange light catching Vanilla’s bodywork, I immediately think:

That is NIX.

Not because I designed it that way.

Because NIX grew out of those moments.

Vanilla being Indium Grey feels almost inevitable.

She already looks like part of the NIX world before I add anything else.

Then add orange details, warm sunset light, black wheels, dark windows and a bit of countryside and suddenly the whole visual identity makes sense.

It is not just a van colour scheme.

It feels connected to everything I enjoy doing.

Road trips. 🚐 Photography. 📸 Drones. 🚁 Camping. ⛺ Mountain roads. 🏔️ Sunsets. 🌅 Night drives. 🌙 That lovely moment when you have absolutely no idea where you are going next. 😄

I think photography has trained me to notice colour differently.

I am always looking for contrast.

Light against dark.

Warm against cool.

A bright subject against a quiet background.

Orange does that brilliantly against grey.

It immediately gives the eye somewhere to go.

That is why it works so well across NIX.

A mostly dark website with one orange line.

A graphite background with an orange button.

A grey van with a little flash of orange.

A sunset burning behind a silhouette.

Small amounts.

Big impact. 🔥

I have always wanted NIX to feel cinematic.

But cinematic does not mean filling every screen with effects.

Quite often it means doing less.

Black.

Dark graphite.

White text.

One orange accent.

Then let the photography do the rest. 🎥✨

That restraint gives NIX its look.

The orange works because there is not too much of it.

It is the sunset, not the whole sky.

I also like what grey represents.

The road is nearly always grey.

And the road is where so much of NIX happens.

The good stuff is not always the destination.

Sometimes it is that stretch of road at 6am.

The coffee stop.

The empty lay-by.

The fog lifting.

The first light appearing in the mirrors. ☕🌄

Grey becomes the background to everything.

Quiet.

Reliable.

Constant.

Orange arrives.

And that ordinary road becomes something worth remembering.

If grey is the journey, orange is the moment.

The bit I stop for.

The photograph.

The drone launch.

The sunset.

The firelight outside the van.

The glow on the horizon when another day is nearly done. 🔥🌅

It is the colour that says:

Look at this.

And that feels very NIX.

The funny thing is, once I started using grey and orange, I began seeing them everywhere.

Motorways under evening skies.

Cliffs at sunset.

City streets after rain.

Industrial buildings in golden light.

Mountain roads.

Caravan sites.

Forests in autumn.

Even dashboard lights in the dark. 😄

The world keeps reinforcing the same palette.

So I have stopped thinking of it as branding.

It is more like a visual thread running through everything I do.

⚡ SIMPLE. BOLD. NIX.

That is why NIX will always come back to the same core colours.

🩶 Grey for the road. 🧡 Orange for the sunset. ⚫ Black for the night. 🤍 White for clarity.

Nothing complicated.

Nothing random.

Just colours pulled from the places I actually spend my time.

NIX was never going to be bright blue.

Or lime green.

Or polished chrome.

It was always going to be darker.

More grounded.

More road-worn.

More cinematic.

Because when I think about the things I love photographing and travelling through, I keep coming back to the same picture:

A grey road disappearing into the distance.

Vanilla somewhere in the frame.

A drone in the air.

And an orange sky absolutely going for it in the background. 🚐🚁🌅🔥

That is NIX.

Grey roads. Orange skies. Endless stories.