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NEWS COLOUR OF THE YEAR
Dulux sings blues’ praises with relaxed Colour of the Year ‘family’
For the fi rst time, Dulux Trade has selected a ‘family’ of three colours in the blue spectrum as its Colour of the Year 2026, to give specifi ers a variety of options “from meditative to airy and uplifting.” The company believes that the colour
family, which they are calling ‘Rhythm of Blues’ offers specifi ers “a broader colour choice and the fl exibility to create multiple expressions of energy, mood and pace in interiors and exteriors across every sector.” Dulux Trade said it wanted to offer designers colour options for schemes which offered a “quieter” set of colours, in order to counteract current “always-on lifestyles.” The company’s forecasters said that people were suffering from being constantly “connected,” meaning “there’s little time to stop, refl ect and refocus.” The need to provide ‘slow’ spaces was therefore the leading theme of three driving the new colours (the others being ‘fl ow’ and ‘free’). They were all put forward under an overarching tagline of “Your space, your pace,” referring to the ability of the new colours to support ‘fl exible’ spaces tailored to each individual, with their own fl ow and feel. The three key colours comprising the new family present a darker option, a vibrant cobalt, and a much softer wall tone. Dawn Scott, senior colour designer at
Dulux Trade, said designers and paint fi rms “needed to offer clients designs to help them switch off, and refocus.” The
second theme (‘fl ow’) referred to reconnecting with nature, and rediscovering the “rhythm of life they’ve been missing, because they’re inside.” Dulux Trade added that “private and public spaces must work harder than ever to help people feel comfortable and connected.”
The third theme (‘free’) was around the
benefi ts of being connected globally to a wide and diverse range of people, bringing a greater fl uidity, meaning “we can be whoever we like, however we like,” said
Dawn Scott. She added that this sense of “liberation” was feeding into “more creative, but also more carefree and fun designs.”
In-person development Dulux Trade once again underwent its painstaking and international face-to- face Trend Forecasting process in order to identify the drivers that will be infl uencing the design of living and working spaces over the coming years, to fi nally produce the Colour of the Year. Completed well in advance, but then reviewed, this was a “collaborative brainstorm with a team of international forecasters,” which were turned into three palettes from each of the three colours by AkzoNobel’s Global Aesthetic Center.
Dawn Scott said that what marks out this process as unique among fi rms promoting a ‘colour of the year’ is that it is “in person, across multiple disciplines, and not desk research.” She said that given the fi rm’s driver to support a wide range of international customers, they “give it the same level of credibility every year, to ensure it really comes from a global perspective.”
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK ADF OCTOBER 2025
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