It's often the case with table settings that if there is color anywhere on the setting it's usually reserved for the center piece. Opting to go safe, white plates and linens are preferred mostly because that's what people are used to. The same old round white plate has it's place, certainly, like in restaurants that are expected to offend noone and not inspire anyone with their dinnerware, but rather with their food. But why limit yourself in your dining room? Let your inner rainbow express itself in your table setting that is both fun, modern, and elegant.

One of the easiest ways to brings color to the table is to use dinnerware with bold colors. The almost starkly utilitarian and contemporary design of iittala Teema dinnerware allows their brilliant hues to take center stage without it ever becoming precious. By combining it with subdued colors in the rest of the table setting, the few choice colorful pieces add great visual interest without the table setting becoming overwhelming or tacky.

To achieve this look, start with a neutral palette like the Chilewich Bamboo round tablemats in oat. Then place the iittala Teema dinner plate in blue and the iittala Teema salad plate in aqua. These two brilliantly colored plates provide enough color to act as functioning accent pieces, no fancy center piece required.

The iittala Aino Aalto dessert bowl, that can be used as a small salad bowl is the touch of light elevating the plates from heavy opacity to light transparency. The light shining through the bowl's rings casts a water ripple effect on the aqua plate that creates a wonderful sense of fluidity in the highly structured and geometic shape of the iittala Teema plates.

Keep the rest of the color palette low-key. Libeco Fjord napkin in flax is visually incorporated into the place setting using the Chilewich stainless steel napkin rings in gravel that echos texture and color of the table mat. Finish the place setting with Sabre Basic 5 piece place setting in dark grey and iittala Teema teacup white.

The iittala Teema teacup white leads the eye to the white center serving pieces: iittala Teema square plate and iittala Teema long platter both in neutral white, and the light reflecting iittala Aino Aalto pitcher that ties the dessert bowls to the center of the table.

The results is a water inspired table setting that seems to bring the colors of the Caribbean sea and capture the light of summer in a table setting.