Loading ...
« Wendy B Tells All! | Home | Mad Men, Style Treats »
Color & Trend Services
By admins | November 10, 2009
Have you picked up your new Pantone color planner yet? While a standard Pantone book is usually a staple of the apparel office, this new book is a must for specifically planning color direction for Winter 2010/2011. It’s called Pantone View Colour Planner – Mosaic. It showcases eight palettes for use in women’s wear, menswear, active wear, cosmetics, lifestyle, industrial design and graphics. We’d definitely recommend checking it out. This news got us thinking about trend and color services in general. So we thought we’d re-post and older article from last year, listing our favorite trend services. Enjoy…
If you’ve ever wondered why brands seem to show the same trends at the same time as their competitors, or how your favorite stores have the same color palette at the same time, trend services may be the reason. These are companies whose sole purpose is to present designers with direction whether it’s for overall trend, print, graphics, or color. These companies work in a variety of ways from online services, to photo books, to skeins of yarn, and more, often costing several hundreds to thousand of dollars. Since most companies design a year before their product hits the retail floor we must know not just what is hot now but what will be hot a year from now. Don’t misunderstand; these companies don’t design for us. Instead they give their point of view on design direction. Design departments often use several services per season, as well as, worldwide shopping trips, magazine subscriptions, vintage libraries, and most of all their own creativity. Below we’ve listed some of our favorite trend services in no particular order, and for those of you in the industry we would love for you to add on to the list in the comments.
- Fashion Snoops - All around great online resource for all categories plus graphics, trims, shopping in a very easy to use format.
- Color Portfolio - Several color books to choose from, beautiful, fashion forward, and with ample skeins.
- Huepoint – Bare bone and efficient color direction, excellent for active wear and children’s plus a huge color library in their NYC office.
- WGSN – The original online service, very extensive information especially great for international trend reports.
- Style*Sight – Online service with excellent runway pics and store windows, although a bit hard to search.
- DenimHead – The must have trend book for anyone in denim, great global pics plus trim and wash info, and a CD ROM.
- Woolworks – Inspiring, colorful, and detailed trend book especially helpful for tops designers and graphic designers.
- Doneger Associates - Consulting company, provides informative direction based on market research and analysis through presentations and on the web.
- Promostyl – French trend forecasting service, detailed and creative books, great for forward trend direction and silhouette ideas.
- We are leaving #10 up to you, so give us your pick!
Here is more related scoop;
Topics: fashion industry, trend | 5 Comments » 
Email This Post
November 10th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
i think this is such a fascinating aspect of design… i always wanted to work for one of these companies! is that weird?
November 10th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I use Pantone color coated & process books all the time but never knew they did seasonal trend too. cool.
always loved Wool Works, so fun and inspirational!
November 11th, 2009 at 10:44 am
We used to use Peclers here at the company I design for, but their color palettes tend to lean heavily towards the “European” aesthetic (dull, muted, drab, washed out colors). Not necessarily good for the American market, unless you work for a luxury company. They are very pricey, too. Now, I have to rely on my intuition, and my Pantone book!
November 13th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Jennine – Not weird at all, it’s a fantastic and unique gig if you can get it.
Fanny- Give them a try and fun is a great way to describe Wool Works.
StichdGirl- Never used Peclers before, but if you need a bigger color palette range, NOA is really nice but of course pricey as well.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Not all designers follow the trend forecasting books. Some go with their intuition.