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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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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”.
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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?

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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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