Colour and Light / Designing with Transparency and Reflection
At Utopia & Utility, colour and light are not afterthoughts—they are active materials in our design process. Especially when working with glass, we think deeply about how light passes through, reflects off, and interacts with the colour and form of each piece.
The coloured glass batch
Glass as a Canvas for Light
Unlike opaque materials, glass offers a unique opportunity: it’s transparent, and sometimes translucent. This quality allows light to travel through the object, turning colour into experience.
Our handblown glass pieces often appear different depending on:
The angle from which they’re viewed
The light source (natural, artificial, diffused)
The layering and density of colour
When layered, different colours of glass can produce unexpected third hues—a kind of visual alchemy that evolves with the environment.
Glass pots | These get changed once a year, and in this image you see the old discarded pots cooling outside the hotshop
Transparency as a Design Tool
We often work with gradient and tonal glass, where colour transitions are created during the blowing process. These gradients allow for depth and visual softness, blending the object into its surroundings and making it seem weightless.
Transparency isn’t just visual—it’s conceptual. We use it to reveal construction, to celebrate material transitions, and to play with perception. In our Stacking Vessels, for example, the glass reveals what lies beneath: wood, metal, or another layer of glass.
Shades of blue
Colour as Structure
Though glass is often associated with decoration, we treat colour as a structural component. Its placement defines visual hierarchy and rhythm. It can anchor or lift a design, depending on tone, opacity, and positioning.
Our approach balances intuitive colour choice with a precise understanding of how glass behaves in light. It's not just about applying colour—it's about composing with it.
Oven for colour rod production
The Art of Layering Colour
One of our core techniques involves layering coloured glass during the blowing process. Multiple gathers of molten glass in different tones are fused together—either over clear glass or over one another. This results in:
Depth and dimensionality within the object
Subtle tonal transitions and gradients
The creation of entirely new hues through optical blending
For example, layering a transparent blue over amber can yield a greenish tone that changes depending on the lighting. Each layer influences how the next behaves, and the final piece holds a quiet complexity that’s only fully revealed in light.
We use this approach not just for beauty but for structure and emphasis, directing the viewer’s eye and defining the character of the piece.
When working with these colours we can achieve very punchy and vibrant colours , but also special effects can be achieved. Like any good alchemist, we don’t give away our secrets, but many of our striking colour mixes come from colours produced with GOLD and SILVER.
Gold is used to create the colour red, and silver is often used in green and blue tones.
Our Heiki Buckets are crafted using solid rod colours. In our Rainbow Heiki, we combine two tones—red and blue—and where they meet, a third colour emerges, as if by magic.
This optical blending is one of the most enchanting qualities of coloured glass, and we take pride in having developed a glass colour palette that is truly unique in the world.