And the Colour of the Year is……

If you Google “Colour of the year is...” you will immediately see the trend experts from Pantone (X-Rite), Flexa (AkzoNobel), PPG, but also trend agencies such as WGSN and Coloro. At least 2 years in advance, they do not consider the “hot or not” question, but what that will be in the coming years. Trend watchers continuously scan the streets for inspiration and trendsetters, view influencers and take societal, social, cultural and (geo) political themes into their considerations.

And the most beautiful colours emerge with all kinds of equally beautiful and poetic descriptions!
How about Pantone's colour of the year 2024 “Peach Fuzz”, “... a velvety gentle peach whose all-embracing spirit enriches heart, mind, and body.” The words of Poets!
Flexa with “Sweet Embrace” and Histor with “Limitless” also trend towards soft and fresh colours. And let's be honest, the trend is super well chosen, because with everything going on in the world, we could use some softness.

The colours are not chosen ad random, there is a whole process involved and the societal impact is significant. We will see these colours everywhere in fashion, textiles, interior, you name it...
  As a Colour Specialist (and human being) I have always been interested in colour trends, but as a Colour Specialist in the plastics processing industry this was never a major point of attention. Power Tools are still only available in the well-known green, blue, yellow, orange and red colours - Electricity can still largely only be found in white or beige and grey tones with a single blue, brown or (terra) red electrical socket - The pinnacle of traditional conservatism can be seen in car interiors with largely black and dark grey; although paints are very colourful with all kinds of flip-flop and metallic effects for some time now, colour trends hardly play a role here.

Of course, you don't buy a new car every year, power drills (preferably) last decades and nothing could be further from you mind than buying new electrical sockets every year. And yes, many of the  plastics applications are mostly practical in nature, they just have to work and needs to look nice over a long period of time... most of us will shiver at the thought of a white or beige car interior; can you imagine all those little jam hands on the backs of the car chairs?

In the plastics industry it is usually about mechanical properties such as tensile and flexural strength, impact resistance, HDT and hardness; colour more often just plays a supporting role for the producing companies (even though some processors will disagree with this!)... sometimes even a necessary evil.

But what if it isn’t like that, that colour is a property that allows you to distinguish yourself, show what you’re capable of? There are ample examples of plastics produced in colour, with some colourful examples being smartphone covers from Samsung and Apple and all kinds of household (beauty) products from Dyson and Philips. And although they do not follow the trend, the Power Tools are traditionally available in all kinds of, sometimes apparently impractical, colours such as red, orange and yellow.

Over the centuries, what has distinguished humans most from animals is the need to create beauty, whether it is music or the arts or architecture...
 
What if plastic manufacturers followed this cultural rule? Imagine that every newly developed plastic grade, in addition to natural and black, were presented in a trend colour.... What if plastics manufacturers also annually declare a “Colour of the Year…” for the most important plastic grades in their portfolio?

BASF’s Colour of the Year for “Appliances, Furniture, Electronics&Electrics” is...

Envalior’s Colour of the Year for “New Mobility, Consumer Goods, E&E and Furniture” is...

Celanese’s Colour of the Year for “Aerospace, Personal Care&Cosmetics, Consumer Goods” is...

Domo’s Colour of the Year for “Building&Construction, Consumer Goods, Electrical&electronics” is…