by Samantha Sannella
Each year, new trends in colours emerge. Highly influenced by fashion, interior design finishes, such as paint and fabrics, reflect trends that aren’t as fleeting as fashion but offer sophisticated ways to make their impact lasting. Colour forecasters analyze consumer trends, social movements and global influences to predict colour trends years ahead of time. Colour psychology and colour symbolism are also factored into forecasts.
According to the Institute for Colour Research, people make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment, or product within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone. Knowing and understanding colour trends is an important part of successful interior design.
After several years of softer lighter colours, rich saturated tones lead the trend, adding vibrancy to interiors. Shades from the purple and violet end of the spectrum are particularly directional this year. Many of the leading paint companies have chosen their colours of the year from this colour family, ranging from Beauti-tone’s soft, mauve-grey, You Look Mauve-lous to Benjamin Moore’s bolder, deep black-purple, Shadow.
Pantone’s 2017 View Home and Interiors palettes offer seven themes. Each theme contains several colour predictions. Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, told the press that the choices invoked “a renewed sense of imagination in which color was appearing in a context that was different than the traditional,” that the hues “surround us in nature,” and that they “evoke a spectrum of emotion and feeling.”
“Matteness” is another important part of the colour forecast as this enhances the softness of the saturated colours. Blues and purples are warm and colour temperatures offer hints of red, orange and yellow. Metallics, especially bronze, copper and brass will continue to be an important part of interior design and mixed metals is on the rise. Matte paint colours offer a distinct contrast to the metal trend and help with a holistic colour palette. Digital technology has a fringe influence on colour and popular in niche markets: colours that appear shifted or changed when you observe them from different angles.