Light here is not neutral and never was

Between eleven and three the light in Lagos is close to colourless and unforgiving — it flattens texture and blows out anything pale. By five it has gone amber and every surface in the city looks like it was designed for it. The ochres, the deep greens, the rust reds that show up constantly in Nigerian signage and cloth are not arbitrary taste. They are colours that hold up under that light.

A palette that reads as sophisticated restraint in a European studio can read as washed-out and cheap here by two in the afternoon. That is not a failure of the palette. It is a failure to ask where it will be seen.

Test in the worst conditions first

I now print every palette and take it outside at midday before I show it to anyone. Screens lie about saturation, printers lie about warmth, and the sun tells the truth immediately. Anything that survives midday will survive everything else.