What inspired a deep dive into colour trends

Have you ever been excited to hear the latest Colour of the Year or the newest seasonal colour trend, yet once they are announced you find yourself asking the question: “What am I supposed to do with that?”

If you’ve said that you’re not alone. I hear this from designers every time a new colour trend is announced and the other common questions I hear are “How do we know if that’s for our industry?” or “What do I do when my client is fixated on using the latest trend colour, but I know it doesn’t work in their scheme?”

Several years ago I really started paying attention to these questions and I dug a little deeper and asked designers what other questions they had about colour trends – and they just started spilling out.

And I realised that for a lot of designers colour trends seem to be a bit of the dark arts.

So that got me curious.

Why colour trends can feel contradictory

Professionally, I’ve always thought that when every major forecaster comes out with a different colour it makes it even harder to know which one to go with. It’s almost like every colour ends up being ‘on trend’!

And the other thing that really fascinated me was why we would go with a colour that a company has picked for us? That’s the opposite of what you do from a colour psychology perspective, which is choose your colours by going within and how you want them to make you think, feel and behave.

So already there was a tension. On one side, externally driven colour trends. On the other, the internal, human led approach that colour psychology asks for.

Who else is in the conversation?

What became increasingly clear is that colour trends are not just something designers think about in isolation.

Clients are part of this conversation too.

They notice colour trends. They read about them. They see them in products, interiors, fashion, technology, and advertising. Often they bring trend colours into discussions because they want reassurance. They want to feel current. They want to avoid making the wrong decision or looking dated.

So when a designer says, “I don’t really use colour trends,” that might make sense professionally, but it doesn’t remove trends from the client’s world.

Why this matters in real client conversations

This is where things can start to feel uncomfortable.

When colour trends are dismissed outright, even with good intentions, clients can feel unheard or shut down. When trends are followed without question, designers can feel they’ve compromised their judgement.

Neither approach builds trust.

Clients are not hiring designers simply for access to information. They can get colour inspiration, predictions, and trend announcements anywhere. They can even use AI for that.

What they are really looking for is human interpretation. Someone who will listen, understand nuance, and help them make sense of what they are responding to.

The real world consequences of getting this wrong

When colour trends are misunderstood or mishandled, the impact is rarely just about colour.

It shows up as misunderstandings. Designs that need reworking. Longer timelines. Increased costs. And perhaps most importantly, a breakdown in trust.

This is one of the reasons I stopped seeing colour trends as something to either follow or ignore. They are something that needs to be understood properly, so they can be handled consciously rather than reactively.

Why I explored colour trends more deeply

So between my own curiosity and the continual questions I was hearing from designers about how to use trends, I knew this was something I had to explore further.

So I did.

And that’s how the idea for my Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know about Colour Trends course came about.

It was a mammoth creation, over 2.5 years in the making as I kept finding myself diving deep down rabbit holes and the more I uncovered, the more I uncovered!

And because there are so many moving parts to the colour trends jigsaw, each time I thought I was nearly done there was something else I uncovered which I had to add in to make sure I’d answered all the questions designers wanted to know. Which it now does, and I can honestly say there is nothing else like this on the market.

The questions designers kept asking

Answering your questions such as…

• What’s the purpose of colour trends? Isn’t it just marketing?
• How do we use them? And why the companies don’t tell us.?
• How do we know which trend colours are right for our client or project?
• What do we do if the colour trends doesn’t fit our own design aesthetic?
• How do we achieve timeless designs working with trends?
• What is the environmental impact of colour trends? Surely this isn’t sustainable?
• How to engage a colour trend forecaster and the questions to ask them?
• What do we do if our client doesn’t like or won’t to use the current trend colours even if we think they are right for them?
• And much more…

Making colour trends work for your client

If navigating colour trends ever feels more confusing than helpful, this is exactly the space I explore in my course Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Colour Trends.

Most designers say they do not follow trends, and that makes sense. But clients do. Colour trends influence what people notice, respond to, and ask for, which means they cannot simply be dismissed. This course helps you understand how trends work, why they gain traction, and how to use them with confidence and discernment, without feeling led by them.

If you’re recognising that this is an area where greater clarity and confidence would genuinely support your work and your client conversations, there is a next step.

Special offer for January

If you’d like to access the course on special offer, sign up to my mailing list and you’ll be the first to hear later this month.

When you join, you’ll also receive my free e book The 10 Myths that Limit You Using Colour Effectively, which explores the most common misunderstandings that hold people back when working with colour.

Colourfully yours,
Karen

Originally published December 2023. Updated January 2026.