Dulux (Akzo Nobel) celebrates 2018’s Colour Futures and reveals the Colour of the Year at Metal Bees.
On 6th February this year, at the artfully industrial venue known as Metal Bees, Dulux launched the 2018 Colour Futures and revealed the highly-anticipated Colour of the Year as “Heart Wood” – a warm shade reminiscent of natural leather or wood, and variously described as greyish brown or pink depending on the effects of light and other colours in the space. The Heart Wood shade can be used alongside any of the colours from the four complementary palettes of the 2018 Colour Futures, to reflect the various ways we react to the world at large.
As Jeremy Rowe, the regional managing director of AkzoNobel Decorative Paints (South East and South Asia, Middle East) who attended the launch explains it, “Colour plays a significant role in creating a perfect, comforting environment. As a colour authority, we exist to empower our consumers to make the right colour choices; choices that make them happy and proud of their homes. With the 2018 Colour of the Year and its four contemporary colour palettes, customers around the world can now create spaces within their home that are truly theirs and up to date with their everyday needs.”

Jeremy Rowe giving a presentation during ColourFutures 2018 launch.
It began around the time that a certain prominent social media platform was launched, when the concept of big data entered common parlance and designers started to look to paint manufacturers such as Dulux for predictions as to what the colour palette of the following year would look like. Since 2004, the Dulux Global Aesthetic Centre has worked with a multi-national team of designers, applying year-round research into evolving trends in order to discern the colour palette of the future. The results of their analyses are compiled into the Colour Futures, a summary of our collective tastes – with each release marked by an annual celebration.
This year (2018), their research into the global consciousness revealed an overall mood of uncertainty in the face of automation and information saturation, leading to a burgeoning need to create private sanctuaries in retreat from the chaos of social media and the pervasiveness of public surveillance. The Dulux Colour Futures of 2018 seeks to encapsulate the reactions of people in response to this global mood, providing four distinct colour palettes dominated by shades of the natural world to enable the creation of safe havens in contrast against the effects of the modern world.
“As life gets faster, now is the time to press pause,” said Heleen van Gent, Creative Director of the Dulux Global Aesthetic Centre. “Our home needs to be a place where we can turn down the noise, where we can nurture our values and recharge. Colour can play a significant role in addressing the balance between outside clamour and inner calm.”
Images and text adapted from a press release by Akzo Nobel.