Design trends for 2021: yellow and grey, home offices with ‘proper’ furniture, greenery, and hygienic surfaces

Pantone has paired sunshine yellow with grey as the trendsetting colour direction for the year ahead

Other interior design forecasts include a move from lighter to darker woods, furniture made from rattan, and finishings in leather and metal

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Soul Birds cockatoo mural by Yani Mengoni. Pantone has picked yellow with grey as the trendsetting colour direction for the year ahead. Interior design experts have their doubts. Photo: Wallsauce.com

Published: 8:15pm, 27 Dec 2020Updated: 8:15pm, 27 Dec 2020

What’s in a hue? According to Laurie Pressman, vice-president of the influential Pantone Color Institute, colour is “a critical form of communication, and a way to symbolise thoughts and ideas”.

Because we could all do with an uplift in 2021, Pantone has picked a sunshine yellow called Illuminating, paired with Ultimate Grey – the former “imbued with solar power”; the latter providing “a firm foundation” – as the trendsetting colour direction for the year ahead.

“Practical and rock solid but at the same time warming and optimistic, this is a colour combination that gives us resilience and hope,” says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute.

So, what do designers think?

Leatrice Eiseman of the Pantone Color Institute calls next year’s colours “practical and rock solid but at the same time warming and optimistic”. Photo: Norsu Interiors

John McLennan, founder and executive chairman of Indigo Living, which has home furnishing stores in Hong Kong, China, and the Middle East, reckons it’ll be a lemon.

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