Trend Bible look ahead to a radical and bright spring/summer in 2012

Trend Bible is bringing you next year’s trends long before they hit the home so you can plan ahead and look forward to brighter days and warmer climes. The pastel and neon brights they’re predicting to be big in spring/summer 2012 look good enough to eat and will freshen up your home radically. Take a look:

As we move into the last month of the year, we look toward the beginning of 2012 and start to explore new ways of breathing life into the home using colour.

Click the image too see an array of bright homeware at mydeco.com

One of the key concepts for 2012 is moving beyond traditional colour groupings like ‘pastels’ or ‘brights’ or ‘neons’ or ‘neutrals’. Here, we present an important colour story for spring/summer 2012, mixing unusual colour families like pastel with neon brights. As consumers grow in confidence and use increasingly unusual and bold colours in the home, we think there will be a revived interest in using paint in place of wallpaper. Colour will be injected into the home via decorative accessories, emulsion and textiles to add a distinct personality.

‘The ongoing post-recessional mood means homeowners will be staying put instead of moving house, encouraging them to think cleverly about creating more space, more storage and a unique hard-wearing yet characterful style at home,’ explains Trend Bible director Joanna Feeley.

We began developing this story back in January 2010 for our spring/summer 2012 Lifestyle Trends for the Home publication. This new, playful and futuristic colour palette mixes pastels and near-neon brights, contrasting unexpected sharp and soft tones, for a celebratory and optimistic opening to the season. Gradiated and tinted opaque substrates showcase this palette best, allowing for layered transparencies like acrylic and glass, which refract and reflect light.

Here are our suggestions for making this palette work in the home for a fresh, invigorating start to 2012:

Textiles

For living room textiles, ombre and irregular stripes beautifully demonstrate how strong colours such as neon yellow and pink can be, used alongside neutral sand and taupe shades to add a commercial element to this vivid palette. Raw, unrefined materials mix with sharp colours contrasting natural and synthetic elements. This works especially well for throws and cushion covers which is an easy way to buy into this trend.

Tableware

Get the look at mydeco.com by clicking the image

This colour story comes into its own for tableware, where transparent materials mix and overlap to create dramatic colour combinations. Fun use of colour, like random drip effects, update neutral-coloured earthenware and ceramics while tinted glass and acrylic add a playful quality.

Furniture

Click the image to see bright furniture for spring/summer 2012

This bold palette is interpreted with more subtlety for furniture, where neutral and pastel colours mix with pale wood and plywood for an understated take on this very modern colour story.

Bright and pastel-coloured laminates and joins are fleetingly applied in unexpected places for an electric colour flash. Colour blocking also works well here – teaming single colour-painted chairs with a neutral table is an effective way to execute this look.

The Trend Bible team wish all our mydeco.com readers a wonderful festive season and we’ll be back guest blogging in January 2012.