Color Trends - Looking Ahead to 2013!

Pantone's 2012-2013 Palette - Lodestar - "Follow Your Personal Star" - vivid and vibrant!

I like to stay a little ahead of the retail and online sale sites by checking out the decorating trends and colors that are just around the corner. I noted that you can get ahead as much as 2013-2014 but that is a little far out for me - 2012-2013 is "ahead" enough. I do not have the same lead times that big-scale manufacturers and retailers have to work with.  

A go-to source for color predictions is pantone link to website - the biggest and universally famous color authority is a reliable source of color information.  

PANTONE VIEW Colour Planner Fall/Winter 2012/2013 contains the following eight palettes:

•                Lodestar – Follow your personal star!
 A range of vivid and vibrant tones, which strongly stimulate your optic nerve and allow you to "see" the world.

•                Composed – Something new comes out of the shadows!
A series of color crescendos from muted warm or cool browns to foggy grayed greens, as well as turquoise and khaki, finishing with a dark coda of chocolate and graphite.

•                Submerge – The world turned upside down! 
A scale of oxygenated and salty blues descends to blackened ink, stone and moss. An underwater garden beneath an underwater sky.

•                Radiate – Break the rules! Use the force of aesthetics! 
Radiate is pure happiness, and very colorful. Do not be scared by shades of bright reds, embarrassing violets and vulgar oranges. Be brave and mix them all together.

•                Touchstone – Take pleasure in things that are old and loved! 
Traditional colors take the limelight: brown-black, mahogany, sandalwood, saddle, mid and dark tan, midnight, glossy navy – balanced by a trusty neutral.

•                Aperture – New ways of perceiving the universe! 
A range, which includes the luminous and the somber, hot and cold, a centrifugal force and a centripetal force, the macro and the micro, the atom and the universe.

•                Converge – Reconnect to your natural power! 
Converge is about deep, informed colors gathered together at a central point and then merged in a new creative way.

•                Peripheral – Appreciate the small elements! 
Using honest, flat, uncomplicated, warm color, we slowly build complex forms as we appreciate how little elements work together to produce great things.

Pantone's 2012-2013 Palette - Composed - "Something New Comes Out of the Shadows".

Pantone's 2012-2013 Palette - Submerge - "The World Turned Upside Down" .

Amongst color predictions (and setters) who need to be engaged on this subject are paint manufacturers.  Here are web sources that describe two of the biggest manufacturers's color palette predictions - Sherwin Williams  and Benjamin Moore.

There is also a pinterest board that highlights color trends - link here - although it does emphasize fashion over decor - but you get the idea.

So, what does all this tell me?!?  It suggests that not much has changed.   Blues are still popular as well as my current favorite - seafoam blue - a version of which is shown in all three of the palettes highlighted above.  It also suggests that you can stay with neutral and natural color themes or go with the supersaturated and vibrant - just read the "radiate" color palette description above.

Good to know but doesn't change much of what I am doing!