COLOR +
DESIGN TRENDS
Mark Woodman CMG, a passionate, dynamic designer, writer and speaker, has contributed to the pages and airwaves of media, the stages of exhibitions and the product lines of international manufacturers. Through the world of color and design, he has embraced consultancies with international companies. Mr. Woodman’s aesthetic understanding of “real-life” color and design helps balance his approach to product specification, complementing practical application with the excitement of “the new.”
"Color and design directions become a narrative journey, building stories along the way..."
Mark Woodman
Owner, Mark Woodman Design+Color
FINE TUNED
Perfectly planned, easily adjusted, precise yet comfortable, it’s time to live a Fine Tuned life.
HYPER!
Color pattern and products will move quickly to capture a sense of fun, catch the eye, imagination, and heart, before quickly moving on to something else,
at a HYPER! rate.
BEIGE is not...
Whether a teddy bear, warm coat, or walk on the beach, Beige is part of the landscape, and life-scape.
Silver Tech | Urbanicity | Air Purifier | Refined Earth | Tech Fiber
Fine Tuned. From AI, to the perfectly crafted pastry, to comfy home temperatures and intricate decor, everything in life needs to be Fine Tuned.
The art of engineering a Fine Tuned life is about art and craft honed to perfection. Industrial looks have taken a turn, it is no longer simply a find from the factory floor but new, polished and confident in the inner workings and the outer shell. The world of mechanics, industrial design and robotics, lives here, and all to make life better.
How things are made, distributed, and reconsidered for a product’s next life, are key to a Fine Tuned, as well. Transparency in practice and the elongated design life of a product offers new possibilities, and excitement. It is not enough to recycle the same product again, it needs to be rethought, and re-engineered, into something different. That is truly a Fine Tuned item!
Like clockworks, minute detail and working mechanisms will be exposed, and celebrated, while items that do multiple duty will ease day-to-day living and result in a more Fine Tuned day. Aesthetics will include metal, gloss and matte finishes, as well as polished woods and lustrous porcelain.
Fine Tuned colors will include clean gunmetal and silver grey, gloss and matte, for a modern industrial design look. For balance, a fresh breath of blue and an earthy red oxide counter the tech edge, and glossy blue-green will suggest the inner power supply required to always move forward.
Home and electronics are a major part of Fine Tuned living, but fashion will also be streamlining life with tech fabrics that collect health data and resist weather extremes and offer multiple uses. For instance, a coat will double as a tent or a driving cap that expands to become an airbag safety helmet, fashion will be more than simple garments.
Set up your digital PA for work and play, check the finishing progress on your one of a kind table, have your home robot plan dinner, and settle in to your autonomous car ride home. Perfectly planned, easily adjusted, precise yet comfortable, it’s time to live a Fine Tuned life.
Au Lait | Sandcastle | Dark Roast | Floating on Air | I ❤️ Beige
Beige Is not a dirty word. It is time to give Beige, and its family of neutral tans, camels, browns, and off-whites, its due. No longer the color that no one wants to see, Beige steps into the light in all its glory, with a whole new aura for design.
This stalwart of fashion, and home has been absent and is to have a renaissance as it begins to take on grey fatigue. Beige will even pair up with grey, adding a jolt of newness, and unburdening itself from its own past. Beige connotes the sand beneath our toes or the towering castle built on the beach. It is the building blocks for a city, or the underground tunnels of an ant colony Beige is strong, and versatile, and comforting.
Beige is simply the center-point of a movement for “coffee” colors that range from the palest foam to the deepest bean. Deep brown is robust and rich, contrasting with pale white suggesting frothiness and light. Classic beiges of sand and camel add a sense of familiarity, but are new and powerful, and pale blue contrasts the down to earth colors with a touch of the sky.
Not only fashion and home, but transportation, appliances, and electronics are looking to Beige-up their offerings, with special effects and finishes that truly cast a new light on this family of colors. Cars in pearlized sand, or phone cases in metallic espresso brown are but a beginning to the warm hues.
Whether a teddy bear, warm coat, or walk on the beach, Beige is part of the landscape, and life-scape. Beige is a color to be anticipated and celebrated because Beige is not a dirty word.
Hyperberry | Drink Your Veggies | Retina Burn | Whoosh! | Unhinged
Fast forward living means fast forward design. Color pattern, and products will move quickly to capture a sense of fun, catch the eye, imagination, and heart, before quickly moving on to something else, at a HYPER! rate.
It's not all about speed, though. HYPER is also about big scale and delivering big. Reconsider design in products and space; in a small space go big, in a long area, go angled. Add “quirky” to a list of words that help embody HYPER. With life running at super speed, there has to be an injection of humor and a sense of the absurd to make it all palatable.
Digital connections continue to reach HYPER speeds, and on the ground, new models for rapid transportation take the concept of HYPER to new levels. Train travel at 600MPH means a Washington DC to New York City jaunt in 30 minutes. The art world embraces new technologies for delivery, and graffiti, the ultimate HYPER creation, basks in renewed interest. Anticipation will used for truly exciting moments as mundane things like household item and food deliveries will be on subscription…but still delivered fast.
Even food now lives a HYPER life. The quick consumption of healthy drinks delivers a fast punch to well-being with everything needed in a few gulps. The HYPER sense of food is there in anticipation of the results, even while it’s still in the produce aisle. It’s as if all fruits and vegetables send the message, “I’m just what you need, get me now!”
Tossing scale out the window, or down the catwalk, proportions in fashion will be further reconsidered and tweaked, with sizing, gender and generational norms tossed aside for garments that send a HYPER message of strength, self-definition and, most importantly, fun.
As well as the scale and aesthetics being HYPER, and sometimes feeling a bit off, so are the colors. Born of amusement and fast-moving life, they feel unbound and energized. A sharpened blue offers a moment to soar, through cyberspace, or outer space, and HYPER speed. A berry influenced violet adds a healthy note that doesn’t slow you down. Yellow stimulates high gloss green for a quick jolt of nature, while yellow itself intensifies to make you glance and quickly look away. HYPER living thrives on sharp contrast, so black, with a subtle color undertone, swings wildly in juxtaposition to the brighter colors.