Participants at the Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance (FGIA) 2024 Fall Conference heard color forecasts from Kiki Redhead, color and trend lead for industrial and performance coatings at Sherwin-Williams Co., based in Cleveland. Redhead manages the company’s DesignHouse department in Minneapolis.
Redhead shared an exploration of trends emerging and evolving in the building products market during the next three to five years.
“I work in color services, delivering color expertise through color trends,” Redhead says. “[As part of] the product design category, you can use color to your advantage, with qualitative and quantitative data.”
Colors apply differently to different market segments, Redhead says. Trend methodology can be used to identify color trends and how they relate to manufacturing and architecture. Color trends start in home decor, then small appliances, then large appliances, then exteriors, Redhead says. “We categorize when, how, and where trends are going to show up.”
Trend management involves identifying trends, analyzing their lifespan using data, observing their evolution and tracking their success and acceptance over time.
“After that is trendspotting, or seeing and recognizing trends before, during and after their peak,” Redhead says. “This is a validation tool used by forecasters to support the direction of their trends.”
Finally, management concludes with trend reporting and trend application.
“Reporting means presenting the content and spreading the word of your trend forecasting,” Redhead says. “This allows the trend to come full circle.”
Redhead says trend reports can be beneficial to sales departments; however, if colors aren’t applied in the marketplace, no one sees them. “Application is key,” she says. “You need to show your customers what your products can look like. Color sells, but the right color on the right product sells better.”
Redhead told three stories about colors to illustrate society’s impact on, and connection to, architectural color trends.
The first color story Redhead shared focused on technology and society’s reactions to large, traumatic events in culture. “White got really sterile around the time of the 2008 [housing] crash,” says Redhead. “Homeowners wanted to use it to make their homes seem clean to buyers. After, we saw cool grays and cool whites. Then COVID hit.”
White interiors with gray floors were experienced differently, according to Redhead. “It was cold, with no personality.
“People felt lonely. They wanted warmth. That is when the warm whites started coming back.”
Redhead says this color trend is important for windows, and companies should consider shifting to off-whites in the next five years.
One new trend in building products is tactility, Redhead says. “Some coatings can have a slight texture. Use it in a gold or a bronze. You’ve been hearing about black for years, but we are moving away from that to bronze and brown.”
Redhead’s second color trend story was about building infrastructure and interpersonal relationships.
“People are getting so much more emotional in today’s society,” she says. “There will be an emotional reaction to your products.” The colors shown in this collection were warm, including a “brickwork-inspired sparkling red.”
Redhead says companies should offer lighter bronze colors. “You probably have a dark bronze, almost black, in your product line,” she says. “You need to start pulling that back or you are going to miss the boat.
“Refresh your blue-based green for a more nature-inspired, soft green. No more dark pine greens. We’ve been there, done that, for the last 20 to 30 years.”
Redhead described her third color story as being all about compassion, and included a vibrant red and neutral, low-gloss navy.
“Navy has been a key color since 2020,” Redhead says. “It’s starting to either go down the green path or a grayer path.”
For health care building exteriors, Redhead recommends a textured clay red color. Finally, she says black is softening.
“You’re going to start to see, in the next five years, black getting a little more muted,” Redhead says. “Give it texture, give it a little bit of sparkle. It’s great for commercial architecture, to make it catch the eye.”
