Kartell Brand Guidelines: The Culture of Plastics, Louis Ghost & Colour

Kartell made plastic a material for high design — colourful, transparent, glossy.

Kartell built its identity on a radical idea: plastic as a material for high design. Where others saw cheapness, Kartell pioneered injection-moulded and industrial polymers to make furniture that replaced glass, wood and metal in the home — and it embraced everything plastic could do that other materials couldn’t: transparency and translucency, bold saturated colour and glossy finishes. The company’s own narrative is literally titled “Kartell. The Culture of Plastics,” and that phrase captures the brand perfectly. Its wordmark is a simple lowercase “kartell” logotype with no icon — deliberately understated, because the products’ transparent colour is the identity. (Two honest cautions: Kartell publishes no documented logo typeface — and beware a coincidentally-named retail font literally called “Kartell,” which is not the company’s brand type — so the mark is best described as “a lowercase modern sans.” And no official brand hex is published, so any swatches are approximate, sampled from product imagery.)

Kartell’s icons are a roll-call of design stars. Philippe Starck is central: his Louis Ghost chair (2002) — a single-mould transparent polycarbonate reinterpretation of a Baroque armchair (Kartell officially calls it a “Louis XV” reinterpretation) — became a global phenomenon; his La Marie (2000) was billed as the first fully transparent polycarbonate chair, predating Louis Ghost by two years; and the Masters chair (Starck with Eugeni Quitllet, 2010) weaves together the silhouettes of three iconic chairs (Jacobsen’s Series 7, Saarinen’s Tulip and the Eames plastic chair). Other classics include the Componibili modular storage unit by Anna Castelli Ferrieri (1967–69) and the Baroque-polycarbonate Bourgie lamp by Ferruccio Laviani (2004). The Kartell Museo (founded 1999) documents this history, holding 8,000+ objects and winning the 2000 Guggenheim award for best company museum.

Kartell was founded in 1949 near Milan by Giulio Castelli, a chemical engineer who had studied under Giulio Natta — the polymer chemist who won the 1963 Nobel Prize for polypropylene. His wife, the architect Anna Castelli Ferrieri, was central to Kartell as its artistic director (until 1987) and a key designer. Tellingly, Kartell began not with furniture but with plastic accessories (like a car ski-rack); its home/furniture division opened in 1963. On ownership, a common error to avoid: Kartell is not controlled by the Castelli family today — since 1988 it has been led by the Luti family. Claudio Luti, a former managing director at Gianni Versace and the son-in-law of the Castellis, took control in 1988 and built Kartell’s modern, designer-driven era; the company remains privately held under the Luti family.

Kartell lives in vivid, transparent colour. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Kartell’s palette is vivid, saturated, often transparent colour — the crystal clarity of polycarbonate plus bold oranges, magentas, blues, greens and metallics. Colour and transparency are the whole point: plastic let Kartell make furniture you can see through and tint in any hue, so its identity is expressed through the products’ glossy, jewel-like colour rather than a corporate palette. That playful, optimistic use of colour is exactly what separates Kartell from more austere design houses. The honest caveat: Kartell publishes no official brand hex — its colour lives in the product range — so the vivid swatches here are an abstract homage sampled from that spirit, not official brand values.

The lesson is colour and material as identity. Kartell feels instantly recognisable because its transparent, saturated plastic colour is the brand — a direct expression of its material innovation. For designers, it’s a reminder that a distinctive material and a bold colour approach can be more ownable than any logo. The takeaways: let your signature material drive your look (transparent, glossy polymers); use bold, optimistic colour as a differentiator; and describe colour as a living product system rather than fabricating one fixed official hex.

The wordmark is a modern lowercase grotesque — clean and current.

Kartell’s lowercase wordmark is clean and modern — a simple, contemporary sans logotype with no icon, kept deliberately quiet so the colourful, transparent products can be the stars. That restraint is smart: when your furniture is a glossy magenta or a crystal-clear polycarbonate, a loud logo would only fight it, so a neutral lowercase mark lets the products shine. The type reads as current and design-literate, matching a brand that has stayed at the cutting edge of material and colour for decades. (Two honest cautions: the exact logo face is undocumented — so the honest description is “a lowercase modern sans” — and there is a coincidentally-named retail font called “Kartell” that is not the company’s brand type, so don’t conflate them.) The type behaves like the brand: modern, clean and confident, letting transparent colour supply all the personality.

Kartell turned a humble material into a high-design brand.

Kartell is a lesson in turning a humble material into a high-design brand. By taking plastic — a material associated with cheapness — and using it for genuinely great design, Kartell created something ownable and distinctive: furniture that is transparent, colourful, glossy and unmistakably its own. The strategy paired material innovation (injection-moulded polymers, polycarbonate) with world-class designers (Starck, Anna Castelli Ferrieri, Laviani) and a bold colour sensibility, so that “a Kartell piece” means something specific — see-through, vivid, playful, well-designed. The quiet lowercase wordmark and the “culture of plastics” narrative simply frame a brand whose real identity is the material and the colour themselves.

For designers and brand-builders, Kartell offers a clear takeaway: owning a material and a colour language can be a brand’s strongest asset. The lessons: turn a perceived weakness into a signature (plastic reimagined as high design); pair material innovation with great designers so the work is genuinely good, not gimmicky; and let a distinctive material-and-colour look — transparent, glossy, vivid — carry the identity, with a quiet wordmark to sign it. It’s also a reminder to keep the facts precise — Kartell was founded in 1949 by Giulio Castelli (a chemical engineer, student of Nobel laureate Giulio Natta), began with plastic accessories and opened its furniture division in 1963; Louis Ghost is Starck’s 2002 polycarbonate “Louis XV” reinterpretation, while La Marie (2000) was the first transparent polycarbonate chair; and the company has been led by the Luti family (Claudio Luti) since 1988, not the Castelli family. Kartell turned plastic into design you can see through — proof that owning a material and a colour language can define a brand.

Keep Kartell’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.