COLOR OPINIONS – Color and Trend Designer Interview

The color designers Livia Baum and Jutta Werner deal with the creation of collections as well as color and design concepts for companies in the fields of interior, product, color, material and pattern. Together with OBJECT CARPET, the new Trend Collection COLOR OPINIONS was created in an intensive trend scouting and monitoring process. In our conversation we got exciting insights into the daily work of the two managing directors of the color and trend agency zukunfStil and the cooperation with OBJECT CARPET.

Livia Baum and Jutta Werner Managing directors of the color and trend agency zukunftStil in Hanover

You are professional color designers – what does a typical day at work look like for you?

We usually start by collecting inspiration in the form of images from a range of blogs and other media. This has become part of our daily routine and forms an important basis for how we monitor trends.

Trade fairs and art exhibitions are also important sources of inspiration, which we use in our work. As color designers, color is obviously always at the heart of our work. It accompanies us through the process of developing color and design concepts, all the way to the creation of trend collections and spheres. The beauty of color design lies in the variety of tasks and our exploration of other sectors.

What was special about the development of the COLOR OPINIONS Trend Collection and working with OBJECT CARPET?

Applying colors and trends to flooring is an exciting job. The floor is an important, striking tool in interior design. Not all colors will work as part of this process and aspects such as safety, comfort and color symbolism also need to be taken into account. It was particularly challenging to match the right quality of fabric to the right color. The gloss level, structure and floor height play a key role here. Only if all these factors come together harmoniously will the end result be on-trend.

The OBJECT CARPET team were a joy to work with, and incredibly helpful – our slightly more free approach to our work complemented OBJECT CARPET‘s expertise perfectly. Over a number of adjustment steps, product samples were jointly viewed, compared and sorted until we found the perfect result. We have created new, innovative color tones, which will be the ideal addition to the color spectrum of OBJECT CARPET‘s high-quality products. The unique aim of this collaboration was to create a collection that reflects current trends and developments in flooring and interior design. Each trend concept has its own individual story and color combination, and encompasses individual interior atmospheres that encourage concentration or creativity.

Where do you find inspiration? How do you determine what tomorrow‘s trends will be?

By continuously observing changes in design and developments in society, as well as regular trend panels held by experts from a range of design disciplines, we have collected a wide range of sources of inspiration and trend results over the past few years – we take these into account and link them in our development process. At the same time, we have worked with the IIT at Hildesheim HAWK (University of Applied Sciences and Arts) to perform studies on living spaces and architecture from 1950 to the present day. These help us to see the relationship between society and design. From this information, we can draw conclusions as to what something will look like or what might become a trend.

We can only interpret the present by looking at the past, in order to then project this knowledge onto the future. Trend scouting takes a trained eye and plenty of experience.

About zukunftStil

The color and trend agency zukunftStil deals with the creation of color and design concepts for companies in the fields of interior, fashion, product, material and pattern. The main focus is on the topics of trend and color, which are systematically linked.