Visionaire

Above left to right; Left; prop sourcing, styling and photography, Naomi Shedden, Right; print by Louise Parr

Natural Selection

Above left to right; Left; fabric created and photographed by Naomi Shedden, Centre and Right; prints by Louise Parr

Palm Springs

Above left to right; Left: styling and photography by Naomi Shedden, Centre and Right; prints by Louise Parr

Sentiment

Above left to right; Left: styling and photography by Naomi Shedden, Centre and Right; prints by Louise Parr

In our Hate To Say We Told You So blog posts, we take the opportunity to demonstrate how we got the trends right for the season; from how well we’ve judged the social mood to design and colour influences. We look for examples of how our trends have been translated and adopted across home and interior product ranges and beyond.

Here we present the second in our series of posts, with a look at our Visionaire trend direction which, we forecast for home and interiors for Spring/Summer 2012, published back in March 2010.

“Visionaire depicts a new and playful mood influencing the home, where pastels are mixed with neon brights, and natural and man-made materials are paired, for a look that is both polished but also celebrates natural irregularities,” explains Trend Bible’s Director, Joanna Feeley. “Expect to see clashing colours, layered transparencies and the mixture of polished and raw textures in this trend, which are both futuristic and familiar.”

Above: mood spread from ‘Visionaire’, one of four trend directions included in Trend Bible’s Lifestyle Trends for the Home Spring/Summer 2012

“The natural and man made worlds are becoming increasingly interwoven. Some of the most interesting developments in this science-meets-nature theme revolve around the humanisation of objects, where products are designed to be responsive to our mood and where humans can connect with technology,” explains Joanna.

“Digital products that emulate nature are also a key direction, with responsive technology becoming ever more prevalant across interior products and a cross section of industries. BMW’s Gina hybrid car emulates humans, with intelligent man-made ‘fabric skin’ which is stretched taut around the car’s metal frame. For fashion and home textiles,  a ‘spray on’ fabric has been developed, formed by the cross-linking of fibres, which adhere to one another, to create an instant non-woven fabric that can be easily sprayed on to any surface.”

“These innovations are influencing commercial Spring/Summer 2012 home and interior product ranges, with the mixture of synthetic colour and unrefined materials being widely executed by key retailers this season.”

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In Store

Trend Bible’s Creative Assistant, Alice Barnes visited UK high-street stores to see how this trend has been translated into home product ranges.

Stripes are a key print for this trend. M&S have injected the bright and pastels into stripes designs for bedding and cushions.

Neon colour flashes mixed with pastels are a key design component of this trend
Near-neon embroidery used as an accent with pastels is a great commercial execution of this trend.

Debenhams, John Lewis and Ikea have all executed this bright palette across their dining ranges. Strong and simple colour execution is pivotal in this trend.

The mixture of raw and synthetic is key in Visionaire. John Lewis have paired unrefined pale wood with flashes of synthetic neon colours for their SS12 photo frames – an easy way to buy into this trend.

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Further Afield

We’ve seen Visionaire influencing a cross section of industries for Spring/Summer 2012.

Yo Shimada of Tato Architects has used neon and pastel post-it notes to create an inspirational folded installation.

The Visionaire colour palette inspires a modern wedding table setting (left hand image) and Caroline Gomez‘s Mouta natural object and furniture collection pairs sherbet hues with neon accents and pale woods.

Editorial 

In the March 2012 issue of Red magazine, the Pretty Modern editorial explores the mixture of brights and pastel colours influencing the home in SS12.

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To see our first post in the Hate To Say We Told You So…SS12 series, click here.

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To find out more about how we can forecast brand-right trends for your business, email us directly.

We were inspired by Trend Bible’s recent round-up of the Maison et Objet show in Paris, with luxe yet subtle metallics and hints of natural wood featuring heavily.  While you wait for the chance to get out into the garden, bring these spring trends to your dining room for a fresh and modern update.

You can add a touch of Paris style to your home with the metallic look – a great place to start is with hints of silver and gold in your tabletop pieces.  If you want to start small, combine the metallic pieces with fun pure white ceramics for a crisp and fresh effect.

If you don’t feel that bright whites and ceramics will fit with your room, channel the Natural Selection trend predicted by Trend Bible in their Spring/Summer 2012 preview (also spotted frequently at Maison et Objet) with rustic pottery, elements of wood and even natural rope.

Working spring trends into your dining room has never been so easy. Ceramics, metallics, wood and earthenware combine beautifully for an effortless and chic spring update. Get started with some inspiration from our Spring Tabletop wishlist.

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See Trend Bible’s latest guest post over on the mydeco blog. 

Trend Bible have received some fantastic press coverage recently including coverage on BBC Radio 4 and in UK newspapers the Financial Times and the Independent but to name a few. Here we share some of these features with you.

You can check out our latest press in Financial Times How To Spend It magazine this weekend, or clicking here.

You can read our article about the trend for sharing and hiring in the Independent by clicking here

Joanna Feeley, Director of Trend Bible, recently commented on the rising trend of renting lifestyle products on BBC Radio 4′s You and Yours show.
Click here to listen to the programme.

We also recently wrote about the shifts in trends for kids for Viewpoint magazine, below.

And here’s our article for Dutch trend Magazine Second Sight, below, you can check out their website for more information.

For May’s post, we cast our net wide into the design community and invited Cat How from online design store, Howkapow, to guest contribute. Here, we find out what’s inspiring her this month.

Listening To

We have Spotify on from morning until night in the studio, and have our own Howkapow playlist which we share with our followers on Facebook and Twitter. It’s super cheesy (think vintage Bryan Ferry and Grace Jones) but we’ve also been listening to a lot of Django Django and Charlie Parr recently too.

Visiting

We went to a great opening party for Paper Scissors Stone in Bristol the other day. It’s a series of five artist run pop-ups shops where the artists themselves run the shop and sell everything from accessories, homewares and illustration to chocolates, glassware and furniture. We also just come back from a gastronomic weekend away in Lyon and cycled our tandem to a yummy gastropub called The Wheatsheaf just outside of Bath for lunch on Sunday. Divine!

Using

We seriously love coffee here at Howkapow and drink quite a few cups of it every day in the studio. Our favourite mugs to drink it from at the moment are our Flowerpop Mugs in mint and pebble, which we’ve recently launched as part of our Summer Collection (May 1st). We love!

I’m also a sucker for big jewellery (I asked everyone at our wedding to bring me a necklace to wear on the day), so have ‘self-gifted’ myself one of our new Hummingbird necklaces… it’s the biggest one in the range so I couldn’t help myself! I’ve been wearing it out along with my new Viva Glam Nicki Lipstick by MAC (I’m obsessed with MAC make up) and it feels like Summer is definitely here!

Inspired by

Undoubtedly one of the big things for 2012 is Pinterest - a virtual pinboard site that lets you organise and share images on the web. It’s a huge source of inspiration and great for spotting new trends so I’ve been very attached (dare I say, addicted?) to it this last month and long may it continue! See Howkapow’s Pinterest site here.

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Howkapow is a colourful online shop selling design and illustration for your home and kitchen, stocking ceramics, prints & posters, accessories, jewellery and gifts from independent designers and doodlers.

Opened in December 2010 by husband-and-wife team, Rog and Cat How, the shop sells colourful products with a stand-out, smile-inducing style. 

The Howkapow shop showcases only the most innovative and interesting work from breakthrough talent. Perfect for those who covet unusual and eclectic gifts and design products, there are new pieces in store every season from a regularly changing collection of jewellery, accessories, homewares and illustration. 

Spraypaint effects and accidental, incidental use of colour on ceramics and glass add a sense of playfulness to tableware. This ‘rough luxe’ attitude to gold and other metallics blurs the boundaries between glam and rustic, approaching luxury in a very modern way, as above.

Pearlescent finishes moved from indoor decorative accessories to outdoor objects, with oversized decorative vases and metallic, iridescent planters made modern with this beautiful effect.

Grouped pendants were the biggest lighting story at the show, the more mismatched, the better. This was seen across wooden, aluminum, glass and fabric shades.

“I loved these alternative modern takes of classic button-back upholstery,” explains Trend Bible director Joanna. “Whether purely decorative, as per the wing-backed armchair, below left, or simply beautifully executed, as per the cream and white version below right, this trend struck the right balance between classic and traditional whilst looking completely fresh.”

One of our key trends for Spring/Summer 2012 is Natural Selection, which plays on a desire for tactile, familiar materials. There were many references to things like the humble ball of string, below, used as inspiration for door stops and candles.

Above: a spread from our Natural Selection story for Spring/Summer 2012. 

Reclaimed and recycled was the big story for wooden products at the show, above, but we particularly liked the use of acrylic, paint and glass to preserve the natural beauty – and increase functionality – of wood, below.

You can also check out our Colour Trends report of the show and Shape/Structure/Form trends from the Maison reports.

In our Hate To Say We Told You So blog posts, we take the opportunity to demonstrate how we got the trends right for the season; from how well we’ve judged the social mood to design and colour influences. We look for examples of how our trends have been translated and adopted across home and interior product ranges and beyond.

We kick-start this series with a look at our Palm Springs trend direction for home and interiors for Spring/Summer 2012, which we published back in March 2010.

“This trend nods to consumers’ eternal quest for utopia and a slower pace of life,” explains Trend Bible creative director Joanna Feeley. “This season we look at retro 1970s Palm Springs, as the fusion of urban and rural continues to be a major inspiration for the home. Modernist architectural elements and eccentric colour combinations present a cool, calm – and inspiring – environment for the home and commercial interiors.”

Above: mood spread from our ‘Palm Springs’ trend direction for Spring/Summer 2012, published in 2010.

“With the focus very much shifting from America to the emerging BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economies over the next five years, we developed a trend that we felt had a nostalgic, reflective quality that deliberately celebrated a true American aesthetic.  Having collected so much data and economic information around the theme of America being questioned as the global super-power, we felt the time was right to develop a theme that celebrated a cool Californian look, something uniquely and distinctly American,” explains Joanna. “This trend is really commercial, and we found our clients could buy into it in a variety of ways, from the strong, dark colour palette to angular, geometric print design.”

In Store

Trend Bible’s Creative Assistant, Alice Barnes visited UK high-street stores to see how this trend has been translated into home product ranges.

Darker shades are increasingly prevalant for summer seasons, with deep oil slick blues, indigo and violet shades used to set the scene, and brighter shots of turquoise, tangerine and cerise as highlight shades.

Stripes and chevrons mix with leafy botanical prints and exuberant oversized tropical blooms as print references in this story. Chevrons and zig-zags filter down from early adopter status to mainstream mass market for Spring Summer 2012.

Blurred and watercolour style prints featured in both our Palm Springs and Sentiment stories. Ombré, dip dyed, and prints with colour bleed bring a fresh look to florals.

Geometric and linear designs are important for prints, patchworking angular, triangle and hexagon motifs.

Trade Shows

We spotted Palm Springs-inspired product ranges at Maison et Objet in February. See our full trade show reports from Maison – Part 1 and Part 2.

In the Press

Sainsbury’s press pack showcases their interpretation of the Palm Springs direction for outdoor living including vibrant melamine picnicware.

Palm Springs has also found fashion editors flocking to the desert to soak up the sun with Harpers Bazaar and Vogue Australia both opting to shoot their February fashion stories there.

Further afield

We’ve seen the Palm Springs trend influencing a cross section of industries for Spring/Summer 2012.

The Saguaro Hotel in Arizona, USA, uses the Palm Springs mood and colour palette to great effect across it’s interior design and marketing material.

To find out more about how we can forecast brand-right trends for your business, email us directly.

At the recent Interiors UK trade show, we spotted a stand by a new East London interiors store, PITFIELD London – “an emporium or re-invented furniture, vintage finds, designer wallpapers, carpets and other curiosities.”

Always on the hunt for exciting and innovative interior products, we sent our stylist Cassandra Doyle to their recently opened store in Pitfield Street in London to find out more about the brand and ethos behind the store.

“Brimming with clash clever colours and a relaxed shambolic vibe, you can’t help but be drawn into the PITFIELD store, a welcome new edition to the East End. Re-worked vintage furniture and design classics sit in a prop house setting alongside a café and gallery. This exciting approach has the feel and originality of a pop up store but it is here to stay. From bespoke geometric wallpapers designed in house, to an oversized bright orange Chesterfield chair, this store offers something for everyone. Whatever your budget you will find something quirky to brighten you home and if nothing else leave full of enthusiasm and bursting with ideas. Whilst I sat at a brightly coloured table in the café, watching individual characters come in and out of the store, the charm of East London is apparent. PITFIELD is definitely going to become one of my new obsessions.”

Are you interested in advertising on the Trend Bible blog?

We are currently developing our blog advertising strategy and looking to partner with innovative and inspiring home and interiors companies to advertise their products and services with us.

If you’d like to request the Trend Bible Media Pack, please email us at enquiries@trendbible.co.uk

We’re all feeling patriotic as we move ever closer to a busy summer of events. ‬Fittingly, this trend is a nostalgic celebration of all things British and champions design classics alongside an eclectic mix of vintage-style typography, utilitarian style, florals and even Victoriana. Here are the main focuses for the Sentiment trend and how you can bring them into your home.

First, the Best of British. This aspect of the trend focuses on iconic designs we all know and love. Double-decker buses, postage stamps and red telephone booths and naturally, the Union Jack feature heavily in home accessories. This postage stamp rug has been given a hot pink makeover and inventively redeployed as wall art.

The Penguin books style and the London Underground map have been applied widely to interiors products whilst a myriad of variations on the “Keep Calm and…” posters of wartime and other examples of vintage typography are enjoying a resurgence. We love this Union Jack version, it really plays up to our pride in all things British this summer.

You can reference this trend easily by incorporating patriotic cushions and prints of these images. Consider including bunting for a post-war, street party style, celebratory feel.

The utilitarian stream of this trend harks back to an era of British designed and made. Furniture is stripped back to reveal something of the manufacturing process with exposed zips and seams. British fabrics like cotton, canvas, linen and silk and traditional techniques such as Herringbone weave are in vogue. Utilitarian pieces are pared down with functionality being key.

Excellent examples of this are metal filing cabinets and galvanized plant pots and buckets. We love this shelf display from Labour and Wait of items from a by-gone age by. For a softer interpretation of this trend take a look at these pretty enameled peg buckets.

If you’re not a fan of the industrial feel, try the third element of the trend – pretty, ditsy, micro-florals. Think English country garden and delicate pattern. Tassels and intricate trims on cushions and blankets are key with softer colours the order of the day. Florals are everywhere, from soft furnishings and wallpaper to dainty crockery and these beautiful tiles from Wellbeck. The teacups are from Royal Albert would add a lady-like, nostalgic feel to any table setting.

It’s easy to bring the Sentiment feel to your home, and the different aspects of it can be mixed to great effect: this trend is as eclectic as Britain itself. Try combining different elements for a fun pastiche of the best of British. This is a trend ripe for interpretation – you can add to the British feel with some fabulous Victoriana. Bell and bon bon jars are an excellent way to showcase a personal collection whilst staying current. These decorative jars would add interesting detail to any sideboard and are easily updated by changing what’s on display.

Finally, consider a nod to the eccentricity for which we as a nation are famous by including a stag coat hook, vintage roe deer antlers or a retro seventies swallow wall decoration.

We’ve put together a wishlist of our favourites to inspire you. The key here is to reminisce fondly about a by-gone era and to revive those elements you deem most worthy of celebration.