Dulux Trade has unveiled its annual Colour of the Year: Heart Wood, a warm neutral, with a hint of heather.
The colour has been revealed alongside key colour predictions for 2018 as part of the brand’s industry-acclaimed trend forecast, ColourFutures, now in its 15th year.
Every year, Dulux Trade’s parent company AkzoNobel brings together a panel of international experts from various disciplines of design to develop ColourFutures, the brand’s industry-acclaimed trend analysis and forecast.
The team scours the globe to discover emerging trends and insights and identifies how they impact the way we live.
The findings result in the selection of the Colour of the Year and key colour palettes that subsequently present specifiers, from architects to interior designers, with a collection of aspirational colour schemes that can be applied to both residential and commercial projects.
This year, acclaimed architect, interior designer and TV personality Oliver Heath was part of the panel, which is based at AkzoNobel’s Global Aesthetic Centre in the Netherlands. Oliver was key in ensuring that all the subtleties of the industry’s specification needs were threaded into the resulting palettes.
While over the last year, the defining shade, Denim Drift, has been the manufacturer’s third bestselling shade, it is hoped this success can be repeated with Heart Wood, Dulux Trade’s Colour of The Year for 2018.
For 2018, that mood is felt to be one of unpredictability and uncertainty. A world in which we don’t know what the news will bring every day; a world with more expectations and more demands on our time; a world of division, and a world where we have greater access to information and choices than ever before.
This year’s four key colour palettes include a variety of tones which each complement Heart Wood in different ways, with solutions for residential, leisure and hospitality, commercial spaces and health care facilities.
The new Colour of the Year and its associated trends have been created to ensure daily environments can become places of calm; where the noise can be turned down and values can be nurtured. Colour is an essential tool in creating an environment that welcomes people in.
Rebecca Williamson, Senior Colour and Design Expert, added: “Dulux Trade’s colour of the year for 2018, Heart Wood, is incredibly versatile, and connects beautifully with the accompanying trend palettes for the year ahead.
"Providing the comfort and reassurance we’re all seeking, it’s the perfect antidote to the mood of the moment – channeling a real sense of calm and warmth during such times of uncertainty. We can’t wait to see spaces across the globe transformed into true sanctuaries.”
Dulux Trade incorporates an extensive range of high profile sub-brands that are unparalleled in their decorative performance. These include Diamond, a hard-wearing innovative range of paints incorporating stain repellent technology, which is available in over 11,500 shades, and Weathershield, a specialist range that can help exterior masonry and timber withstand the elements.
The Colour of the Year is just one of an extensive portfolio of tools and services available to help specifiers unlock the maximum potential from their spaces.
