The British Colour Council was founded in 1931 in an attempt to standardise colours in use by government and industry throughout the UK. Official indexes of British Standard colours, each given its own colour name and number, began to be produced.

David Mellor have gone back to the early 1950s British Standard colours, with their wonderfully evocative period colour names. The mug itself, designed by Corin Mellor is exclusive to David Mellor Design.

Each mug has a special colour-coded back stamp 'Designed using the British Standard Colour system' with the relevant colour name and number appearing on the mug as part of the design.