You've just moved into your new apartment. As you look at the uniform white walls and beige carpet, you wonder how am I going to make this domicile my own? One of the most individual choices you can make are the colors you choose for your decor. But you may find that even then, it may be difficult to express your individuality as much as you would like.

Whether you need new furniture or just a few accessories, you will find when you begin shopping that the stores almost have a homogenous appearance. Why? Because they are merchandised in a limited palette of colors that vary only a shade or two from one competitor to the next. From Target to Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn to the Container Store, you'll find that the products for the home, whether they are placemats to futons, all seem to coordinate or feature similar colors. This year, if you aren't into kiwi, ocean blue or red, you may be out of luck.

How can this be? How do the stores pick product colors? And how do they know consumers will like them and that the colors will coordinate with your particular flat?

The answer is - they know. Here's how.

Colors are as important as design and function in the merchandising of products, a lesson that was brought home to manufacturers with the popularity of avocado green and harvest gold appliances for the home during the sixties. As new kitchens were installed in new homes and apartments, owners and renters found that coordinating the look was difficult without other appliances and accessories in the earth tones to match. Not only that, but the popularity of the colors also dated the era, limiting sales and causing consumer dissatisfaction. The truth is, we want change.

"It used to be that color trends started in Europe in fashion, filtered over here, and then we would see it in ready-to-wear. Then home furnishings would follow. Now because of computers and the Color Marketing Group, everyone is doing things at the same time," says Robin Strangis, designer and member of the Color Marketing Group (CMG,) a 36-year old, non-profit international organization.

CMG members include 1,500 Color Designers from every industry imaginable - toys, cars, and home interior product manufacturers, among numerous others, who are qualified to interpret, create, forecast and select colors for manufactured products.

Semi-annually, CMG members meet and collaborate at a world wide conference, to discuss the direction of color that the CMG’s Consumer and Contract Color Directions® Forecast Palettes will take. These palettes are developed annually as color "directions," not directives, according to the organization and are intended to show the course that colors may take. The colors are basically a reflection of the news, sociological trends, the environment, the economy and other world-wide factors. Once the colors are chosen they are designated to certain groups of products, which may signal counter-trends. For example, automobiles may have deep, rich colors, while home products lean more toward pastels.

According to Co-Chairmen, CMG Consumer Color Directions® Committee, Michelle Lamb, CMG*, Marketing Directions, Inc., Minneapolis, Minn., and Susan Iverson, CMG, Fingerhut Companies, Inc., Minnetonka, Minn., "Technology is a driving force behind the movement of color teaming up with special effects. Computers are increasingly being used in the design and coloring of products, and there are no longer limits on what can be created." This means that texture and dimension are also part of the color selection process.

CMG members forecast two separate trends in color for 1999. For Home, Communications/Graphics and Fashion products, the mantra is "lighter, brighter, cleaner." For Action/Recreation and Transportation products, the words are "d eeper, darker, richer." "These two seemingly opposing trends can coexist peacefully," says Michelle Lamb, "and these Forecast choices can be tinted to whitened values that represent the new direction toward lighter color."

Susan Iverson, adds, "The Forecast Colors also confirm that, by 1999, the baton will have passed from green to blue as the dominant influence of color. As blue becomes the dominant influence on color, there remains an interest in red. This creates a lot of blues and purples for Consumer product markets in 1999 because purple is the natural transition for colors moving toward blue with a red influence."

The 1999 Consumer Color Directions Palette includes the 12 Forecast Colors listed, which are projected to appear in Consumer product markets in 1999:

• Spa Blue- a clean, clear, serene blue that reminds us of the need for cleansing our body, mind and soul.
• Mystical Purple --an ethereal color leaning toward blue, a color that will expand the purple range over the next two years.
• Par Four Green--blue will enter greens once again
• Seagrass Yellow--green tints in yellow, a complex color that can act as a neutral.
• Blue Planet--Worldwide attention is on outer space. This hue is the blue of our oceans as seen from outer space.
• Freesia Purple--a new, warm purple with a touch of red, a reminder of the flowers in nature.
• Mineral Gray--a light, cool gray with a touch of green.
• Clearwater Blue--A transitional color taking turquoise and teal into a mor e water-inspired blue.
• Pure Purple--A true gender-neutral color that unifies not only male and female elements within us, but categories of product.
• Regal Purple--This purple will act as a bridge to blue.
• Cherry Fudge--A rich, full-bodied red that is touched with brown, an inspiration from ethnic influences from around the world.
• Alexis Blue--a blast from the past for the transportation markets - this blue has a slight green cast.

Is the CMG a color dictator? Hardly. And the organization does not expect consumers to throw out everything they have purchased in order to stay trendy.

In fact the growth and reliability of the predicted trends made by the organization has enabled manufacturers of all kinds of products to introduce greater variety and selection to their respective consumers. Thanks to their contribution, more consumer products are available, making resources such as Target and the Container Store that much more viable.

That is why the colors are slightly modified year to year to give the consumer change, but not radical change, allowing minor updates to suffice in certain markets. If you have your home the way you want it, you can freshen the look with as small a product as a pair of candlesticks.

So, if you've had your heart set on a purple couch, this is your year. But by the year 2000 you may be accenting the same couch with industrial grey pillows, as consumer colors are influenced by commercial tones and vice versa. You may even work in an office that is "softened" by lavender and coral walls and furnishings as technology becomes more "humanized."

Whatever colors you choose, if you are planning on moving in the next couple of years, you'll be pleased to know that your new color scheme will be as fashionable in your new apartment as they are in your present abode.

Published: April 6, 1999

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