The Trending Colors in Design of 2019
More than half the audience decide on buying a product based on this, while over 80% recognize a website thanks to this particular thing. Any guesses what the “thing” could be?
Well, if you haven’t been able to figure it out, that “thing” is color. Yup, the “thing” that adds, well, ummm….color to your website, making it more vibrant, more alive. The “thing” that gives your product brand identity and recall.
So, it goes without saying that without color, design would be kind of non-existent (cue, designers taking out their pitchforks and running at me, insisting “design is not all about color, it is a lot more complicated!”) or at least, well….boring.
Using the right color can make or break your product/website; therefore, it is imperative to know everything there is about colors, particularly the trends.
Here is a look at the trending colors of 2019:
Living Coral
Every year, Pantone gives out their Color of the Year, and for 2019, they’ve gone ahead and picked Living Coral.
Sounds cool right. Now, let’s get to what the color is.
Well, living coral is a little bit of orange, a little bit of pink to go with a dash of golden undertone — giving designers a color that kind of has a life of its own.
Living coral is dedicated to the beautiful coral reefs, which, unfortunately, has become endangered thanks to the one species that deserve to be endangered, but are anything but — humans.
As is usually the case, Living Coral has been seen everywhere this year — on clothes, on handbags, on accessories, on jewellery and, of course, on websites and brands — Apple is already adapting the color for its iPhone — and everything in between.
Graphic designers love the opportunity to work with a new color and go a little crazy, so look for Living Coral, the next time you browse your favourite website or check out a product.
Earth, we’re looking at you
Ah, Mother Nature — the one we claim to respect so much, but slowly destroy anyway, not giving a hoot for what will happen in the future. Maybe, to try and establish the need to respect nature more or to emphasize on the importance of conservation, earth tones are in fashion for 2019.
So, look for greens, ocean-inspired blues, sand-inspired browns and creams and other colors that immediately give you the natural/nature feel.
Bold and full of life
To go with the earth tones, we will also see and have been seeing tons of bright and vibrant colors, colors that hit you in the face, but in a good way.
Using vivid colors can be a little dangerous, because it is easy to make it seem garish and over the top. However, if you manage to maintain the right balance and use these bright and bold colors for a reason, and not go overboard, it can be one of the clinchers for you, be it in website design or branding.
Vivid colors give the consumer a feeling that the brand is alive, and that immediately creates a positive impression. It can also invoke a futuristic feeling, that eclectic, this-is-not-from-this-world sensation.
Use it intelligently, and it can be an absolute game-changer.
Single is boring and lonesome
Using a single color can be great to create a brand identity, but, after a while, it all becomes, well, a little blah. So, embracing the future with 2019, colors have decided to band together and form a kind of eclectic design.
Therefore, this year, we have found and will keep finding plenty of multi-color designs, where the ridiculous amount of options available have been used cleverly and used to bring out a proper “this is fun” effect.
Of course, mixing and matching is fraught with danger, but if you use the countless colors to good effect, the design playground will turn into all kinds of entertaining.
Metallic is where it’s at
Gold is one of the in things in 2019. After all, Living Coral has a little golden hue in it. However, this year, gold also has a few metallic companions — be it silver, titanium, bronze or copper.
All of those metallic elements are running wild in 2019, to make it seem like you’ve been transported to a world where robots rule and metal is all that is there (Cue the Doctor Who episode).
These colors especially work with 3D. If you want to make your brand look exclusive and posh, try one of the metallic options.
The rainbow effect:
Think of a CD, and how it changes into the colors of the rainbow when seen in a particular light. Now, think of that design on websites, brands and products. That is the iridescent effect, the pattern that gives you a change of color feeling.
Magical is another word that can be used to describe iridescent, and with the kind of mystical style that fashion and website designers have been taking to lately, this falls in perfectly.
Those metallic combinations mentioned above are perfect to create the iridescent effect. But there are other color options too, and finding the right ones will mean staying right on point with one of the biggest color trends of 2019.
