Dorothe Kessels and Thomas Eurlings of Forbo Flooring Systems discuss how trend reports are helping to shape the future of design, helping architects create spaces that meet modern expectations and inspire creativity.
Trends are a crucial part of the architectural world, feeding into and influencing specification choices, as well as ensuring the buildings you are creating meet modern expectations. Whether it be design or functionality, it’s important that as an architect or specifier, you are up to date with what is evolving in the industry. To aid this, many manufacturers will create their own in-house trend reports, which they use to curate product collections and meet market needs. Such documents can be a very beneficial tool, with in-house design teams using them to create new collections.
Making a trend report
First and foremost, it’s key to analyse the trends in architectural development and the ways in which a specific product, like flooring, is being used by customers. By studying this information, design teams can build a clearer picture of what the current trends are and begin to form ideas of how they can support this. For example, if research were to find that there is a growing trend towards ‘nature-inclusive’ design, firms may incorporate this into upcoming product collections. This could involve a shift from cooler colours to warmer tones or developing patterns inspired by nature. Supporting this, they can look at how this is reflected throughout other building finishes, whether that be furniture, flooring or the materials being used.
Another effective way that design teams can gather trend information is by venturing out to trade shows and speaking to other interior finish providers, looking
at what products they offer and what they’re developing. By getting face to face with other manufacturers, designers can gain a more rounded perspective on the types of products that their offering will be used alongside.
Once these initial ideas have been gathered, it is time to examine and explore them in greater depth, both internally within the business and out to a wider panel of customers. By gathering customer feedback on the existing offering or asking directly what it is they need or want, design teams can get a much better picture of how they’re able to support these requirements. Some teams will even go out and interview architects to learn more about their recent material specification experiences and their key ‘wants’ from a product collection.
To finalise new ideas and internal reports, designers will focus on developing their ideas into a more streamlined range of products. Here, being mindful of the colours or building materials that are being used is key, ensuring new products support the methods of working which are currently used in the sector.
Benefits
The most obvious benefit of trend reports for architects and specifiers is to be supplied with a product that meets their needs and allows them, in turn, to satisfy their clients’ needs. Whether that’s to meet the design expectations they have, in terms of colours, patterns and materials, or tick the boxes for functional requirements such as acoustic performance, slip resistance, durability, ease of cleaning or installation.
For example, at Forbo we create our own trends report every two years, as well as compiling this into a global colourcard; these tools are used internally by our design teams to help create new collections and to ensure consistency across our extensive product portfolio. To showcase the crossover of its entire portfolio, a curated selection of colours, patterns and materials is translated into a mood. Each selection, or edit, tells a unique story connected to an overarching design theme, developed to inspire and excite architects and designers.
Current trends
Natural materials, like wood and stone, remain a key and enduring design trend. More specifically, the focus is on celebrating a material’s inherent character shaped by its natural origins, rather than imitating nature. By harnessing bold, raw and refined designs that are tactile and expressive or make the most of history, the past becomes more accessible. Spaces are another key consideration; mainly, by creating spaces that are made with design in mind rather than functionality, designers can produce a flexible basis for various user scenarios.
By developing such trend reports, manufacturers can help customers by supplying on-trend products that fit not just aesthetic needs, but also functional ones too. It’s important to note that trends can include more than just colours or patterns, but also more functional needs like installation methods or durability.
Dorothe Kessels is director of global design & Thomas Eurlings is a senior vinyl designer at Forbo Flooring Systems