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The Blue Sky's the Limit for 2009 Color Trends
According to Michael George, site lab manager at Bayer MaterialScience's (BMS) Color Competence and Design Center in Newark, Ohio, the trends in product colors are driven entirely by consumers — whose mood in the coming year will be affected by the economic crisis at hand and growing awareness of environmental issues.
George puts it simply: "When people buy a product, they want it to make them feel good."
So bring on the feel good colors of the future!
By using the Color Marketing Group's (CMG) predictions of color trends for 2009 and beyond, as well as their own observations of the market and customer requests, the experts at the Design Center formulate their own predictions about what color demands customers will have in the new year.
The first big trend — and you heard it here first: blue is the new green. While the environment is still top-of-mind for consumers, the color trend will shift from green designating "eco-friendly" toward blues that mimic the color of the sea and sky.
George also said that in the next few years, we can expect to see a trend toward the neon, bright colors that we last saw in the 1980s. Those bright colors will be a direct result of consumers wanting to feel good and take their minds off the economic pressures of daily life.
At home, bright or primary colors are out in favor of colors with an environmental flair. Look for an earthy influence with warm browns and soft blues, but not pastels. The same goes for office environments, where the trend is for a muted, earthy tone. Another trend — what the color experts are calling "getting back to basics" — will translate into many consumer products moving toward blacks and silvers.
"The life expectancy of a product is what drives the variance in colors across markets," George said. "For example, consumer electronics and clothing have a product life of six months to a year. Those kinds of products have the luxury of being trendsetters and taking risks with color, whereas in the automotive and housing markets, product life expectancy is many years. Designers in those markets can't take big color risks and expect them to still look good as the product ages."
For more information from the Color Competence and Design Center, visit http://www.bayerfantasia.com/colors/video.html, or send an e-mail to pcinfo@bayer.com.
To set up a visit to the Design Center, please contact your Bayer MaterialScience representative.
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