New year, new fresh palettes. Giving your colours a 2021 update will instantly transform your designs from "yawn - seen it before" to "omg - I need it now" in the eyes of your customers. Finding the right balance can be tricky but we’ve got you covered - read on for five hot tips from Sara, Head of Design & Strategy here at LPD, on how to cleverly use colour to make your designs walk straight out of the door and into the arms of your customers.
Colours for this year are driven by a desire to take a step back from our over-stimulated lives and connect on a deeper level; Peaceful shades that bring comfort and soft optimism, are juxtaposed with bold brights that bring the fun factor and connect us to our authentic selves.
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1. BUTTER, CLAY, AND OLIVE
Colours like butter, clay, and olive work well to ground any palette. These tones can be used as highlights or as anchoring bases for multiple shades. Forever nurturing, these colours work well for both screen-print and digital processes. This season’s new softer take on butter tones keeps a fresh edge to these staples and works well on a wide range of skin tones.
2. GO BOLDLY
We keep saying it, but this one’s a no-brainer; the world is ready for optimism! A curated palette of blazingly bright colour pops stands boldly amongst the elevated neutral tones for maximum impact. This year the big colour combination for fashion and lifestyle is Yves Klein Blue paired back with red and pink. Use it widely - as an energetic base colour, or as a striking highlight.
3. TONAL HIGHLIGHTS
Balancing your palette with tonal highlights can be the secret to creating fresh focal points within your print. I always recommend some highlight colours that echo peaceful earth tones to create a nice balance. Try adding strokes of moss or seafoam to both soothe and illuminate your design.
2. MILLENIAL POPS
With WFH life taking over, everyone is spending more time online shopping and social media browsing (on our lunch breaks of course, wink wink) and so there are a few more ‘millennial’ colours to play with this season. Pair pops of red, pink, or neon back with neutrals to give a young, fresh look to your designs.
5. HOMELY WARMTH
With the home environment becoming well and truly integrated into both our work lives and downtime, we use cozy palettes to create both a playful and inviting habitat. Here, colour takes a re-focus towards the calming and natural qualities it can possess which makes a welcome relief from the consumer trends we have seen in the past. Have fun with these, experimenting with soft colours and contemporary hues. I like a base of oat with butterscotch, soft canary, and sky blue to modernize it this season.
