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CMG announces colors for 2001

Posted on August 26, 1999

in Visual Design

by Wolfgang Bromberger (wolf)

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Wolfgang Bromberger

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User since: December 13, 1998

Last login: September 07, 2005

Articles written: 34

According to the Color Marketing Group, blue will be the most important color for the new century, also a choice of neutral colors in cool and warm grey, earthy brown colors, brownish grey and light brown.

Also a trend for soft and bright colors, lead by greenish aqua and deep lavender, as an answer to consumers who wish for 'happy clearness' in their environment.

But consumer goods of the next century also need energetic colors, to balance the blue and neutral tones. Stimulating orange tones, red tones and golden-brown tones from Marocco and Australia close the gap.

The members identified four color groups as being important in the next century:

  • Techno-Colors: From grey through black and true white, from a technical background.
  • Chromatic Adrenaline Colors: Energy filled shadowings, to brighten up color combinations and give products "speed".
  • Serenity Colors: Colors satisfying customers who wish for harmony in life; bright, soft and relaxing. Natural and mostly inspired by water.
  • Mediterranean Culture Colors: Earth tones.

More information about CMG's Consumer Color Directions? Forecast for 2001 can be found at the Color Marketing Group website.

Wolfgang .wolf Bromberger has been around online since 1996. He started to get into web design after he and some other students developed a concept for the online presence of their home town, Salzburg in Austria, a site Bill Gates used years later as a good example of e-government (as still not nearly all points of the concept have been made reality, .wolf disagrees).
Being interested in search engines and information systems, .wolf specialized in search engine optimization, online promotion and analysis.
.wolf was one of the founding fathers of evolt.org
He is working for Kreiseder.com and can also be reached there.
He is always interested in learning new programming or other web related skills, when time permits.
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Submitted by olineham on August 27, 1999 - 20:48.

Does anyone else think this is ridiculous? Took a bit before I realised it wasn't just some joke. C'mon, prediction of colours? I can *just* believe it with respect to traditional media.. but on the web, trends change too fast and unpredictably. I bite my thumb at thee, CMG.

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Submitted by Anonymous on August 27, 1999 - 22:33.

I had the thought initially too. Who wants to say what color I like in a year? Wrong. What design will have most products have proably by then? maybe the one described above. PR and such people stick rather to themselfes ;) and do their things. Seriously, what I am trying to say, that those people certainly influence a lot of people in design..so one can expect that a lot of products will look like this..voila, so one could think a lot of people like it that way.. maybe, but mostly because it is the Zeitgeist. And Zeitgeist is mostly something very artificial. Just thought it to be interesting, if it affects the web world as it is said for other products, is certainyly something one can doubt. But if a lot of products look like this, the need to design web sites with these colors may also arise. I stop ranting now ;p!

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Submitted by MartinB on August 30, 1999 - 03:29.

I guess their raison d'etre is that when you're designing products, you'll have an 18 month lead time, so predicting what colours will sell in 2001 makes sense. However, we're not designing with that kind of lead time. You can change a site in a day (if it's small, or you've put it together with dynamic publishing to templates). So better to look for the colours of next week, picking up the Zeitgeist of now.

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Submitted by mashton on August 30, 1999 - 09:14.

I've worked with CMG in the past. Don't laugh them off about predicting colours of the future. They are VERY influential in the fashion, home decorating and automotive industries. Fashion designers will use CMG's data for selecting the colours for their next collections. The recommendations they make will influence about 60% of everything you will see in the next 2 years. What we as the public see is a very broad/generic data from them, but as a member you get extremely detailed data predictions for product/demographic/geographic combinations. So if deal with Large consumer product companies understanding this is important, since it is thier mind set ( and the customer is usually right, even if they arn't). Just my hubble ramblings.

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Submitted by cjnvision on March 23, 2000 - 13:23.

the idea of using what CMG is predicting is, in my opinion, very relevant. from a purely creative standpoint it may not hold so much weight but from a commercial standpoint it is something to analyze and apply. as mashton said, at least 60% of what you (and i and your neighbor and your client and your audience) see will be influenced by these predictions. taking these themes as what they are, THEMES, will be very helpful in designing what will be pleasant to the eye in the context of the contemporary era. trends aren't trends arbitrarily, they're circles of influences all affecting each other. by keeping these predictions in mind and using them to associate ideas and feelings with your color schemes, it stands to reason that you will be more successful in your design. anyways,

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Submitted by cjnvision on March 23, 2000 - 13:30.

the idea of using what CMG is predicting is, in my opinion, very relevant. from a purely creative standpoint it may not hold so much weight but from a commercial standpoint it is something to analyze and apply. as mashton said, at least 60% of what you (and i and your neighbor and your client and your audience) see will be influenced by these predictions. taking these themes as what they are, THEMES, will be very helpful in designing what will be pleasant to the eye in the context of the contemporary era. trends aren't trends arbitrarily, they're circles of influences all affecting each other. by keeping these predictions in mind and using them to associate ideas and feelings with your color schemes, it stands to reason that you will be more successful in your design. anyways,

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Submitted by marshallgs on May 3, 2000 - 21:19.

If you think about it, what are the colors that you like? I personally liked the colors they picked and quite possibly, so does the general public.

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A bit more specific please

Submitted by dtimo on October 17, 2001 - 15:55.

True the CMG hold all of our eyes in its hands. As pointed out this molding of fashion by palette allows for paint manufacturers and fabric makers to create the raw materials for tomorrows fashions. Occasionally some one steals the show (iMac translucent blue) but it's usually an orderly process. This sneak preview allows those who do not pay to get a hint of what's coming (So we can be ahead of the curve) but it has none of the specifics. The CMG pallets are fairly specific. I, for one would hate to be caught using the wrong adrenaline color.

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