For the Lufthansa Worldshop magazine, I gave an interview on the topic of Pantone trend colors and explained which colors will brighten up the approaching winter in autumn/winter 2021. How do you make the step from color to emotion? This is a question I ask myself again and again in my everyday life as a fashion illustrator. In 2021, the Pantone trend colors are Ultimate Gray and Illuminating.

But who ultimately decides which color is the focus for which year and what causes the popularity of the respective trend shades?

You can read the full interview with me here.

One color can change everything

Ms. Karboul, what effect do colors have on us in everyday life?

Colors set the tone for the effect of an image or a product: they can be used to create a mood, a field of tension and help shape the viewer’s visual experience. So if blue has a rather melancholy effect, this can, put simply, be softened with a contrast from the other end of the color scale.

Sometimes colors can even transport us to foreign places.

Yes, because they have a huge emotional value for us. They shape us from an early age and we associate certain emotions with them throughout our lives. Colors can be loud, relaxing, positive or negative for us without us knowing why. And they subtly take us to familiar places – even if they are perhaps thousands of kilometers away.

Does color already play a role in the development of products?

Absolutely, because colors have a decisive influence on whether products are perceived as high-quality and coherent. We all have unconscious viewing habits: What we perceive as aesthetic and trendy is formed from the sum of the things we see. Not only in terms of colors, but also shapes, cuts and haptics.

How are trend colors created?

Many influences come together for this, especially from art, design and fashion – it’s an organic process with no clear order. When a new trend color finally emerges, it is quickly picked up in many places and gradually becomes part of our visual habits.

New Pantone trend colors are also released every year. What is it all about?

In the 1950s, the Pantone Color Institute developed the first universally valid color palette. That was an absolute novelty, a kind of globalization of colors. When I tell a person on the other side of the world a certain color code, it is still immediately clear which shade is meant. New colors are added regularly – and are of course also reflected in the design world.