Who Says Pink and Blue are "IN"?

There has been a lot of chatter on the internet about Pantone's announcement of the new colors for 2016; "Rose Quartz" and "Serenity".

To me and many others those colors hearken back to either baby shower wrapping papers or the geese, hearts, and ribbon decor of the eighties. Neither of which do I need to re-experience!

In one day there were several posting of sun sets or rises similar to this one that I took. Each poster noted the similarity of the colors to the ones that were forecast... maybe it was late in the day, the Pantone folks were tire and wanted to move on to cocktail hour, so they choose what they saw out the window!

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The discussion reminds me of a conference I went to years ago, and I thought you might be interested in an insiders look at how some of this forecasting happens. The group I belonged to was the Color Marketing Group. This is an international group that is made up of creatives and product developers from many industries including auto, fashion, home decor, paint, flooring, etc.

If you think about it when you go to remodel your house, you want to know that there will be paints that will match  your sofa and carpeting and window coverings (the industry I was involved with) . When you go purchase your car, it is nice if the seat upholstery color is in the same family as the carpet and the exterior. But all of these are made by different manufacturers so how does that happen?

At this annual meeting, we all brought three groups of information. First was the sales history, broken down many ways, of the colors that were selling now. Secondly, we brought information and samples of items that we were looking to release in the next season or two. Thirdly, we brought information and supportive evidence about colors and ideas we were just starting to look at now for use in few years hence.

We then got into groups of related industries to go over this information. The discussion were not just about color. They also took into account finishes (shiny, matte, metallic, etc),  materials (natural vs. plastics, new technologies, etc) and processes. It was so very interesting AND I could see where this coordination is also necessary. If the lighting industry started focusing on bright blue metals, while the carpet industry was doing something totally out of sync with that, neither would sell much. Cohesively designing a car with parts from so many industries would be impossible.

After days of discussions, opinions, facts, looking at the economy and trends, we developed color boards using the results of these discussions.

The CMG committees would then compile this information, organize it and disseminate it to their membership. This information was just that; informative. It was not dictate of what any industry should or shouldn't do, but instead was cross-industry information that they could choose to apply as much or as little to their own product design as they felt was appropriate. Many just used it as a check and balance system against their own conclusions.

It was an interesting process, and on many levels an extremely productive one. The final color recommendations were certainly not always on target but they did suggest directions.

Next time you go into a store and can not longer find that royal blue you loved three years age, or suddenly the store seems awash in an orange you never thought you would wear or see again.... this is why! But if you can't find that royal blue, just go to Goodwill, and you will probably find loads of the colors that were popular a few years ago!