2013 Trends
As part of his duties for Color Marketing Group, Woodman travels across North America to attend color workshops. During these meetings, the 2013 Color of the Year, Re-Blue, was chosen. Woodman notes warm colors had been chosen as Colors of the Year for the past several years; Re-Blue counters that trend and evolves design toward more cooling colors.
He says the Color of the Year is chosen based on cues from the world around us. Woodman explains: “Our members will look at a little bit of everything: politics, sociology, travel, food, technology. Blue has become the color of technology: Tech companies use blue for identifiers or lighting, like Indiglo blue. Toyota uses blue to brand its hybrid vehicles. Car dashboards tend to be blue, not only because it’s a soothing color, but also because of its visibility at night. Think of all the high-end technical products that have blue in the name: Blu-ray, Bluetooth. Just naming these things has made blue hip and forward-thinking. Blue gets an edge as opposed to being the classic go-to that it always has been. Basically, it has been Re-Blued, thus the name of the Color of the Year.”
Woodman adds that as a classic color, blue is inherently relaxing, comforting and energizing. Think of water, he says, which is blue and has these characteristics. “Blue also is kind of representative of us—not a political party but of our flag and military uniforms (dress blues),” he adds. “There’s a connotation to it as a color that moves us forward and on to better things. The discussion surrounding Re-Blue suggested heritage and a bit of cleansing. Those were terms that came up across the board. As we look at the start of a new political administration, Re-Blue seems appropriate.”
For those who aren’t ready to commit to Re-Blue or any other expanse of color in their space, Woodman points out there are many neutrals being created with tints of color in them. “At Global Color Research, we have a story called Reflect, which contains a lilac-influenced gray, the softest blush color and yellow-influenced off-whites,” he says. “And out of Color Marketing Group’s workshops, we have a neutral coming called Filtered Moon, which is essentially a very pale green—90 percent of that green is yellow. At first glance it’s an off white, but if you look again there’s a tiny bit of color running through it. We want more nuance, depth and more interest even in our neutral colors.”
Woodman expects 2013 will bring about a richer softness to color, thus more neutrals being influenced by color. But, he adds, color trends can appear unexpectedly. For example, when the Baltimore Ravens National Football League team was established in 1996, there was a lot of concern that purple jerseys and T-shirts wouldn’t be purchased or worn by men. “The football team’s knock- ’em-down, drag-’em-out connotation suddenly was translated to purple. Now purple is this big, tough color, which it hadn’t been before—yet another example of how the world around us affects color trends.”