Unison Colour Deals — Compare Sale Prices & Find the Best Discount UK

There are very few art materials that can genuinley claim to have changed the perception of an entire medium. Unison Colour soft pastels are one of them. Before John Hersey began experimenting with his own formulations in the early 1980s, soft pastels were largely seen as an accessible but somewhat limited medium — inconsistent, prone to breaking, variable in colour strength. What Hersey created — and what his family business has refined over forty years of continuous production — shifted soft pastels into the company of the finest professional artist materials available anywhere in the world.

I've spent sixteen years in the art supplies industry, nearly a decade at ARTdiscount, and I run Discount Art Supplies — a price comparison platform used by over 36,000 artists and crafters every week. Unison Colour is a brand that commands genuine reverence in our community among artists who work in pastels — the kind of reverence that's earnt through consistently exceptional results rather than marketing. When pastelists talk about Unison, they talk about the colour depth, the smoothness, the way the pigment transfers to paper with almost no pressure required. They talk about it the way watercolourists talk about Arches paper or oil painters talk about Michael Harding — as the thing you work toward when you're ready to take the medium seriously.

The production process at Thorneyburn in the Northumberland National Park is genuinley extraordinary to understand. Each pastel is made by hand using pure pigments — cadmiums, cobalts, natural and synthetic earths — bound with almost no binder, which is the key to both the softness and the colour intensity. Where most commercial pastels use relatively high binder content to aid production and prevent breakage, Unison uses the minimum possible — just enough to hold the stick together — which means the maximum possible pigment content per stick. The result is a pastel that deposits colour richly and immediately, that blends and layers without muddying, and that maintains its vibrancy on the paper surface in a way that lower-pigment pastels simply cannot match.

The colour range has grown from John Hersey's original 117 colours to 380 across a palette organised not by conventional colour wheel logic but by tonal and atmospheric relationship — groups of related hues that work together to capture the quality of light in landscape. The colour names reflect this: Blue Violet, Red Earth, Yellow Green — descriptive of the colour experience rather than the chemical pigment. Sets are available from 8 colours through to the full range, and individual sticks can be purchased to supplement sets as specific colours run out. The Large Pastel format — approximately 70 x 20mm versus the standard 50 x 20mm — is worth knowing about for artists who work on a larger scale or who go through specific colours quickly.

The Associate Artist Programme launched in 2017 and now encompasses over 200 artists worldwide — professional pastelists who work with Unison, run workshops, contribute to product development and help maintain the connection between the manufacturing process and the practical demands of serious pastel painting. This relationship between maker and user is genuinely unusual in commercial art materials — most manufacturers are separated from their end users by multiple layers of distribution. At Unison, the feedback loop between artist and maker has shaped the product continuously for forty years.

Unison Colour is now chaired by Dan Hersey, John's son, and remains a family business operating from the same Northumberland base where John first developed his formulations. John Hersey was appointed OBE for services to the arts in recognition of what Unison Colour has meant to the pastel painting world internationally — a deserved recognition of what started as one artist's frustration with inadequate materials and became a globally exported British craft.

Getting the best Unison Colour deals in the UK involves some comparison between retailers because pricing varies meaningfully on both sets and individual sticks. Jacksons Art typically offers some of the most competitive pricing on Unison and runs periodic promotions on the range. Cass Art carries a comprrehensive selection in store and online. Amazon carries selected sets and is worth checking for competitive pricing on the most popular starter sets. Buying direct from unisoncolour.com is worth considering for the full range including limited edition sets and the Centenary collection — archived colours from the brand's history that appear periodically in limited runs. Our price comparison below pulls live pricing across all UK stockists so you can see the best current deal before you order.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who founded Unison Colour? Unison Colour was founded by Northumberland artist John Hersey in the early 1980s. He first showed his pastels publicly at an art materials show in London in 1987, displaying 117 colours on a kitchen dresser alongside his wife Kate. John Hersey was appointed OBE for services to the arts. The company is now chaired by his son Dan Hersey.

Where are Unison Colour pastels made? Unison Colour soft pastels are handmade at Thorneyburn in the Northumberland National Park, UK. Each stick is made, labelled and packed by hand using pure pigments and the original recipes developed by John Hersey.

How many Unison Colour soft pastel colours are there? The current Unison Colour range covers 380 colours, expanded from the original 117 that John Hersey first showed in 1987. Individual sticks and sets from 8 colours upward are available.

Why are Unison Colour pastels regarded as the best? Unison soft pastels use pure pigments with very little binder — the minimum needed to hold the stick together. This gives them an exceptionally high pigment load, producing rich colour transfer with minimal pressure, excellent blending properties and outstanding lightfastness. Each stick is handmade to meticulous recipes developed over forty years of continuous production.

Does Unison Colour have a discount code? Unison Colour don't typically release public discount codes. The best route to a saving on Unison pastels is through retailer promotions — Jacksons Art and Cass Art both run periodic sales that include the Unison range. Our price comparison below surfaces the best current UK price in real time.