Clerkenwell Design Week 2016 Trend Report

Conveniently located in EC1 in London, Clerkenwell is a hotbed for architects, interior designers and specifiers of all kinds, with practices neighbouring material manufacturers aplenty. Every May this design-focused borough opens its doors - be they showrooms, churches, crypts, buses or purpose built pavilions - to the public with an array of the latest furniture, material finishes and trends on show over the three-day festival. One month on from the largest fair in the design industry, Salone Del Mobile in Milan, it's a chance for manufacturers to respond to the designs previewed there, and to offer a fresh showing of the very latest interior trends. It also offers a platform for earlier-career practices to show their wares, get some feedback and hopefully gain some new followers!

Keeping abreast of the latest trends and innovations is essential for your business and practice, but with so much going on it's sometimes hard to take it all in. Here's a pick of the key colour trends from this year's show.

With a plethora of spaces creating room-set style environments Clerkenwell Design Week is always a great place to get some insight into the latest interior colour trends. This year the principal colours were relatively muted mid-tones that sat amongst a broader selection of harmonious soft neutrals, which were dominated by grey tones.

Green was one of the most abundant shades throughout this year's show, ranging from the more pale and neutral tints through to emerald, jade and even olive shades as illustrated by furniture brands such as Swedese, Tacchini, Capdell and Dedon. Taking direct inspiration from nature, a mix of such tones offers a subtle but positive sense of balance and growth.

Further nature inspired shades of pink and berry tones were also used across a broad range of applications with furniture brands Halle, Mitlab and Tacchini as well as surface material manufacturer Baux dropping in such mid-tones. Often used in conjunction with green, these fruity hues with notes of plum, lilac and peach help to produce a deeper sense of lushness and stability.

Contrasting accent colours cropped up consistently throughout, most notably burnt yellow and saturated golden tones as seen on Tacchini's stand. Using such a range of harmonious mid-tones with touches of solid and slightly amplified shades offers a sophisticated and balanced palette that exudes confidence through its subtlety. Dulux Trade's Colour of the Year, Cherished Gold, is another example of this trend taking hold. An earthy, ochre mid-tone, it evokes a humble glamour and makes a softer statement than its brighter counterparts. It also echoes the new-found importance of authentic materials noted throughout Clerkenwell Design Week this year.

Keep up to date with our colour trends and be inspired for your next project by visiting Dulux Trade's Colour Futures pages and keep an eye out for our CDW materials trend report coming soon.

Jim Biddulph is Projects & Materials Manager at material library Material Lab. Find out more about Material Lab Images courtesy of Jim Biddulph.