Room & Board Murphy Living Room - feat. Murphy Sofa in Emerald Green

The colors chosen for 2013 by various expert communities have had a chance to grow on you for a few months now. This week we’ll break down each on what we hear from customers, how the industry is responding, and offer suggestions for how to use these colors in interior environments.

Dreamwalls Color Glass as Coffee Table Top in Emerald Green - Room & Board Furnishings

Emerald – Pantone Institute Color of the Year for 2013

Emerald, I must say is growing on me. It tends to look good with most complexions and give folks a happy glow.  It has a bit more blue than a Grass or Kelly Green, and that makes a difference in looking more “luxe”.  As for home interiors, I am seeing it in pops of accents, but we’re not sampling it very much for our surfacing products for tile, backsplashes, tables or wall cladding. I think most people find it far too bold and dark for those sorts of applications. It is a key addition to a preppy or prep-school style palette that is popular this year.

Pantone Palette: Home+Interiors 2013 Trends ~ New Old School

LOOK FOR IT:

In the living room as Dreamwalls Color Glass side table toppers, or coffee table focal points. Experiment by selectively painting with fun, modern patterns to instantly update a space. Use it in conjunction with other bold color statements to keep it young.

Where do YOU see Emerald green going into your interiors?

In celebration of Pantone’s 2013 Color of the Year, Emerald, I thought we’d take a trip down the yellow glass road to Emerald City this week! I’ve rounded up some great glass finds that incorporate the lush green color into the home.

From top right to left: Vintage Emerald Glass Table, Emerald Green Table Lamps w/brass accents, Mosaic Fruit Bowl, Scalloped Round Mirror, Art Glass Emerald Knobs, Hand Painted Blue and Green Glass Vase

I love that mosaic fruit bowl and the lamps! The more I see of it, the more I love Pantone’s color choice. Emerald is my birth stone, after all, and what my little hometown of Hiddenite, NC is famous for. The Emerald Hollow Mine is the only emerald mine in the entire United States that is open to the public for prospecting and there are over 63 different types of gems there. Between being the king of color for 2013 and everyone heading to see Emerald City in the upcoming Oz: The Great and Powerful movie, I’d say emerald is going to have a pretty good year!

Have a great weekend everyone

Holly

The Pantone Spring 2013 Fashion Color Trend Report has been out a while now, but in light of the buzz that Navy blue and Emerald Green are gaining for the “it” color of 2013, I think it bears a fresh look. These various superstars of fashion have very different styles, but for them to come together and showcase these colors in their own unique ways is interesting.

Whether it is “Monaco Blue” (CMYK = 92 / 67 / 10 / 32) or “Emerald”  (CMYK = 86 / 8 / 57 / 0) there is really no doubt that these are the colors we will be wearing on our bodies, and will migrate into our homes. So below are a just a few of the designers featured in the dowloadable PDF, along with my addition of some recent home and furniture designs I’ve spotted that seem to be on trend with the Spring Forecast. Prepare yourself for more stripes, straps, and pattern mixing on both fronts.

Monday, I spoke about the opportunities for blue as the color of 2013. Today, I’m going to show you some luscious greens. In the Pantone Home+Interiors Forecast webinar a few months ago, they had several in their palette that referenced renewal, growth, elegance, and preppiness. Could one of them be the harbinger of the Color of The Year? And to show some universality to the appeal, I’m using colors from Sherwin Williams’  2013 Color Forecast.

This soft, minty pale green creates calm and soothes the soul to promote gentle optimism:

Or perhaps a bright acid green to invigorate and electrify society with new energy?

A rustic, bottle green references moss and the deep winter woods for an environmental stance:

But my vote for a green of 2013 is this prep-school emerald green that could kick it by the school yard with a biker jacket anyday:

See how great it looks with the other greens in this set? It’s a universal color that can pull not only all these disparate greens together, but would also look great with mulberry, grays, navy, and of course, a crisp pressed white.

Global Views Glass Granny Smith Apple

The question is, will Pantone “bite” on this color and name it their 2013 Color of The Year? My predictions say it’s 50/50.

Pantone Color Predictions for 2013

I was fortunate enough to attend a webinar last week for the Pantone View Home+Interiors 2013 forecast by Laurie Pressman, Vice President of Fashion, Home & Interiors for Pantone. “Fantasies and Realities” was the theme of the presentation, and it did not disappoint. It made me very anxious to predict what the color for 2013 is going to be when it’s unveiled in a few weeks,….but I’ll save that prediction for now  until the end of this post.

According to the literature: “In order to create the ‘magic’ in the marketplace that ultimately leads to sales, colors for 2013 will need to coax and cajole, soothe or astonish, renew and replenish. At the same time, there will be the consumer’s expectation of practicality – what colors will have staying power and can be relied upon as a steadying influence in unsteady times? Skillfully balanced color palettes that play to their practical side, while satisfying their aspirations, hopes and needs for something novel will remain key to enticing the would-be consumer or client.”

The webinar moved so fast, I could only take so many notes. Each theme had 3 or 4 slides with expanded colors – here is just a brief snippet of the palettes of the “Fantasies and Realities” trend forecast:

Connoisseur

Glamour

Extracts

New Old School

Rugged Individuals

Sojourn

Surface Treatments

Footprints

Out of The Ordinary

I encourage you to purchase the full Pantone View Home+Interiors 2013 kit or attend the webinar. It was well worth the time to get a peek inside the forecasting collective of Pantone.

Oh, and as for colors of the year predictions,….I was torn between a blue and a green. Maybe a denim blue, or preppy navy? A Kermit green or chartreuse? But honestly, they’ve had many different shades of blues over the past decade. So after seeing this presentation, I really think it’s going to be an emerald green.

There. It’s been released into the internet. I predict Emerald green. We’ll see if I’m right come January 2013.

With all this talk about Tangerine, I just had to go out to our manufacturing floor and see what sort of orange samples we’ve been sampling lately in our Dreamwalls Color Glass backpainted glass. The answer? Plenty! I pulled just a few to share:

Dreamwalls Color Glass Orange / Tangerine Samples

From top to bottom: Pantone 485C, Pantone 021C, Pantone 180C, Pantone 186C, and Sherwin Williams 6882 “Cayenne”. All of which were sampled the end of 2011. So what orange can we mix for you today?

Comparison of 2012 Color of the Year

Pantone 17-1463 Tangerine Tango has been chosen by Pantone as the Color of the Year 2012. Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of Pantone Color Institute said in a press statement:

“Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

Now, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but orange seems a relatively “safe” choice for the color of the year. Think about it – Orange has been fairly common in packaging in recent years to denote a young, energetic, or modern product ranging from energy drinks to electronics to printing. Bright and cheerful, it’s a pick-me-up for the winter doldrums, and is as comforting as a bowl of tomato soup.

USB Stick Package Design By Tom Lancaster

Orange has been in the shelter mags for sometime as the added “pop” that every space needs. I have no doubt that it will be more prevalent than last year’s color, Honeysuckle. It looks great with neutrals ranging from khaki to gray, and it is a fantastic foil for the navy blues I’ve been seeing more of.  One of the finest shelter blogs in the business, Apartment Therapy, has known this for years….

This reddish orange could be said to also rival the red trend I was seeing emerge at the Fall 2011 Furniture Market in High Point.

Read more about how you’ll be seeing the color in the runway from the Pantone Fashion Color Report 2012.

What are your thoughts on this color choice? I love the cheerfulness, and it’s a color that men and women seem to like,…but does it seem safe to you? (or is it just that it’s also the color of Crossing Guard Vests?)

Fran Mooney, color and design specialist at Benjamin Moore, gave a fast-paced, highly visual presentation on the Color Pulse 2012 color forecast yesterday. If you haven’t signed up for this FREE webinar, I recommend it. It was among one of the better color trend presentations I’ve seen,…and I’ve been to quite a few. Apparently, their process is like all of our processes: they go to shows and travel, then start to see patterns and trends emerge. However, since they’re Benjamin Moore, they go to WAY more shows than I do, and have access to places that I would never be allowed access. So many thanks to them for putting together a way to allow us to see so much in a short amount of time.

This lightning speed slide show focused on the over-arching theme of “Preservation”. When first heard the word, it sounded relatively cold and “blah”. It made me think of “Self-Preservation” and “Protectionist”. However, Mooney summarized it as “a vision for a sustainable future” and a “call to embrace the rhythms” of the earth.

The four branches of this theme are “Heritage”, “Process”, “Protection”, and “Enlightenment”.   As the slide show progressed, Mooney brought out the nuanced meanings of each term and we began to see some trends emerge leading to a sense of community and the idea that “we’re all in this together” or on the verge of a “modern renaissance” .

Without giving too much away, there’s an overall warming trend over the 2011 color palette; with a heavier increase of neutrals and blues. Grays and ivory have become more taupe and blush. Warmer, red-toned colors of the earth increased, while the acidity of yellows decreased.

I think my favorite pallet was the one of “Protection” which focused on hardness and defense, with a pearlized luster underneath. (What can I say, I love to romanticize myself as an “urban warrior”, despite the fact that my front porch overlooks a cow pasture.) But notice how romantic the pallet is? And yes, ladies and gentlemen – that is mauve. But is it also Pantone’s Honeysuckle that I spy? I definitely see the Dreamwalls cream, too.

Benjamin Moore "Protection" theme colors 2012

With the exception of a few minor slide glitches, the quality of the presentation was very, very good, and you can earn 1CEU credit. I’d highly recommend everyone try it out. It’s a good solid hour and I have 4 pages of notes to prove it. They also have a “workbox” and iphone app that could be useful at a reasonable price. Click to learn more about Color Pulse 2012. Their next webinar is on February 16, 2011.

Cream - a Dreamwalls Color of 2011

Here at Dreamwalls Color Glass, we work with color everyday, so we see patterns and trends develop. As the year progresses, we’ll share some of what we’re working with the most with you. I’ll call these the Dreamwalls Color Trends of 2011. What is the first trend of 2011 that we’ve seen emerging? Cream. I am basing this on what you in the design community are asking us to sample the most.

We can create back-painted glass in any color you specify, from electric pink, to true reds, and the whitest whites. However, we have been get asked to sample a lot neutrals, and creams are at the top of that list. So when we see a lot of a specific color, it definitely raises my antennae. Yellowish White, Cornsilk, Biege, Old Lace, Vanilla Ice,…you name it, we’ve run it. Perhaps, you can attribute it to our strength in the hospitality or healthcare sector which looks for a lighter, more “spa-like” feel. Or, maybe because of the tumultuous economy; safer, more calm colors have been the trend.

84 in x 130 in. sheets of cream Dreamwalls Color Glass in the NC factory

Cream - smooth and rustic

Cream - comforting

This pale color may be particularly attractive for us to execute because we use Starphire® Ultra-Clear glass, which is a low-iron glass that has less greenish tint to the glass. This allows the warmth of creams and the truer color of all pastels to come through more realistically. We can also coat low-iron acid etched glass for an even softer ethereal color effect.

That’s not to say we don’t get requests for brighter colors. And in future posts, I will share those with you, too.

What colors would YOU like to see in Dreamwalls Color Glass for 2011?

Or, visit our facebook page and comment on what color you’d use if you designed a custom kitchen. www.facebook.com/DreamwallsGlass.

As January is rolling forward, I wanted to review some of the big color announcements and compare/contrast them with each other. As a company that works with color every day, we don’t always see the trends immediately. We are a little different. So before I unveil what we see, I wanted to review what three big names in color are touting as their “color of the year”.

Pantone’s Color Of The Year for 2011

Pantone’s Color Of The Year for 2011 is “Honeysuckle”.  Read their official press release with comments from Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®, at http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/pantone.aspx?pg=20824&ca=10 . Where I live, honeysuckle flowers are yellow or white, but this color is a fun, coral-y pink.

• A vibrant & energetic pink
• Creates a healthy glow in clothing
• Adds a shot of excitement to home accents

Glidden’s Color of the Year 2011

Glidden Professional released their Colour of the Year 2011. What is interesting about this one, is that, like the Honeysuckle, it is fairly bright and cheerful. #89YY 78/269 is particularly airy and light with a feel of “fizzy sherbert” and “new growth”.  Sounds fun. Download their report on Colour Futures at http://www.glidden.com/inspiration/colour-futures.do .

• Light and airy
• Citrus greenish notes
• Appreciation is the theme
• Accent with deep berry violets, crisp blues, or other airy pastels

Benjamin Moore Color for 2011

Benjamin Moore announced their color for 2011, and it’s called “Vintage Wine” The swatch, on its own, looks very taupe/gray, but in environments it’s a sophisticated purple with flexible brown notes. See it in room environments at http://www.benjaminmoore.com. Definitely a different direction than the above two colors, but wouldn’t this be great as the “ground” for the other two to use as pops of color?

• Comfort of a brown
• Luxury of a smokey violet
• Soulful
• Accent with yellow green (see Glidden’s color above?), cream, teal, or terra cotta

In my next blog post, I’ll share with you the Dreamwalls prediction for 2011, based on what we’re sampling for designers and architects these days. Will it be close to one of the above?