Vancouver Colour Consultant: Here’s How Colour Trend Forecasting Works

The restaurant we had dinner in on Sunday night had this art with Texas is Colorful behind me. (Maria Killam)

Okay, so if I told you the ACTUAL colours we ended up with this past weekend, I would have to swear you to secrecy along with double secret handshakes, etc and well, given that you are not in my living room, that would be hard to do. So I’m just going to let you in on the process we use in colour forecasting.

Colour marketing professionals do not sit around and just conjure up new colours for the unassuming public to give you a bunch of random new shades to buy. It’s about studying where all colours are going in all industries – fashion, automotive and technology, for example. We do this to get a feel for what is coming next. All of this is based on what YOU are already buying.

Each expert arrives with their “NEXT” colours along with their “story” behind each one. It’s the story behind the colours that is important; in other words, how you arrived at the colours you are seeing next. This was the board my group created (above). Then the facilitator of each group of colour experts takes their final colours to Steering which we distill even further to arrive at our palette of colours for the next two to three years.

So here were some of the “stories” behind the colours:

Taking Flight – Birds In response to the heaviness politically and economically, people are looking to be uplifted, and to have a feeling of happiness, lightness and freedom. No constraints.

Yellow: Last year the Colour Marketing Group announced “Honeymoon” as being the colour of the year. Most of our group had not used it yet but gold has influenced yellow for value, richness, affordable luxury. As I mentioned the other day, my on-line clients have not been interested in yellow in the past year; however I am using yellow for the clients whose homes I’m designing here in Vancouver.

Green: Homegrown, natural, green movement, eco, wellness, alive, more energy, freshness, healthy. It’s Nature’s neutral because it goes with every colour. A flash back to youth.

Kelly greens have been on the peripheral of greens and shown in higher end fabrics for the past five years but yellow-greens have still been more popular. Yellow-greens are still here because of the green movement. They did not disappear with the brown trend of the 2000s like they did in the 80s when avocado green stayed in the 70s.

Some colourful pipes in the Pearl District in San Antonio. A trend I have not seen in Vancouver.

You already saw the orange I mentioned in yesterday’s post. Blue is rich, deep and vibrant. It’s cleaner which makes sense as cleaner colours work well together if that’s where colour is going. Purple is moving to a more glamorous and elegant shade. Deeper and less feminine.

So that’s how it works.

I had dinner with Donna from Comin’ Home (below). She lives in Texas and was in town with her husband for a conference. How could I not love someone that posts a sweet comment on every single post I write

(Donna, this doesn’t mean you have to do it forever. 🙂

She is just as charming and lovely in person as she is in her blog.

Maria & Donna

We had such a great evening, it was the highlight of my week. Donna and her husband picked the most perfect, magical, touristy spot right by the river for dinner (don’t remember what it was called) and it was so fun to be able to sit outside without a sweater (very rare for Vancouver even in the heat of summer).

The restaurant

The view from our table

The first day when we toured The Pearl District we were told that originally the river was basically used for sewage and the city had to decide whether to pave over it or turn it into a tourist attraction! It’s a good thing they did because they get 11 million visitors a year. San Antonio is a lovely city, I wish I had more time to see it!

By the way I’m STILL working on my new website. It’s taking longer than I thought and I am starting to worry about how it’s going to work going from Blogger to WordPress. Advice would be appreciated!

Download my eBook, It’s All in the Undertones. If you have a computer, you can download my book!

If you would like your home to fill you with happiness every time you walk in, contact me.

To make sure the undertones in your home are right, get some large samples!

If you would like to learn to how choose the right colours for your home or for your clients, become a True Colour Expert.

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