AI keeps making up colours – a UK startup is fixing that

Key Points

Colour Memory launched publicly in the Claude connector directory on 20 October
Its archive holds 52,634 records, including 45,303 colour records
Claude cites a source and evidence grade for colours, or says none exists
Oxfordshire photographer Digby Oldridge founded the platform
It also runs in two Figma plugins and through an API and MCP server

UK startup Colour Memory launched its 52,634-record colour archive for Claude on Tuesday (20 October).

Colour Memory said in its launch announcement that the tool already sits in the Claude connector directory and gives Claude a researched archive to check colour answers against.

The firm said AI can produce a convincing colour, hex value or colour history in seconds, and Colour Memory lets Claude show where that colour came from and where the evidence stops.

Colour Memory used Dorothy’s slippers from The Wizard of Oz to show the difference. Most people remember them as ruby, but L. Frank Baum’s 1900 book describes them as silver.

With Colour Memory, Claude traces the colour from page to screen, citing Baum’s page numbers before giving the Smithsonian’s own description of the ruby red used in the Technicolor film.

It then breaks down the museum’s surviving pair colour by colour, down to a bluish pink dye over silver and toe sequins that faded under the studio lights.

Where nobody ever recorded a measurement, Claude declines to invent a hex value, the six-character code screens use to display a colour.

Colour Memory said every colour claim now comes with its source and an evidence grade, or a plain statement that the archive holds no record. The tool labels each hex value as documented, estimated from a historical description, or a look-alike.

It also calculates contrast for every colour pair and checks colours against market and period context before a campaign goes to print, a brand identity gets approved or a film set gets built.

The archive holds 45,303 colour records across 98 collections, drawn from historical documents, materials, museum research and cultural references.

The firm said its historic hex values serve as screen approximations unless stated otherwise, rather than measurements of physical samples.

In one of six published demonstrations, Colour Memory audited a four-colour brand palette and measured every possible pairing.

Only three of the six pairings passed WCAG AA, the widely used web accessibility benchmark for readable body text, with green on burgundy failing at a contrast ratio of 1.20:1.

Another demonstration runs a room-by-room reading of a 1771 country-house diary. Users can try the tool by starting a Claude prompt with “Using Colour Memory”, which tells Claude to call it.

Built by a photographer

Digby Oldridge founded Colour Memory after more than 20 years producing images and films for commercial brands and PR agencies.

His Oxfordshire company, PR Eye, develops the platform.

“When anyone can make something look extraordinary with a single prompt, looking extraordinary is no longer enough. What matters is why,” said Digby Oldridge, founder of Colour Memory.

“Every colour has a past, and that history is an extraordinary creative resource. Colour Memory gives AI something more substantial to work from, so the decisions behind the work can be as interesting as the results,” Oldridge added.

Colour Memory works across several tools, including: