Why Color + Trend are Important
Color dominates first impressions and highly influences our connection to a brand, product, environment, and experience. Trends show how lifestyles and culture are evolving, forecasting what will be meaningful to people in the future.
Color + trend strategy is crucial for brands because it focuses efforts and resources on what matters - on what will elevate identity and messaging, impact and appeal, revenue, and the brand/community relationship. It creates a purposeful, attuned vision based on the shared values between a brand and the people it serves. And, it designs the approach, stories, and aesthetics to achieve that vision.
Well-executed color + trend strategy builds brand leaders.
For a deeper explanation of benefits, read Enlist a Strong Color + Trend Voice. For more information on why and how, take a look at How a Color Designer + Trend Forecaster Does Her Job and How to Create a Brand's Color + Trend Strategy.
Services
Color Design
Color design creates the visual language that communicates your brand’s character and culture. Color is the first opportunity you have to speak to consumers. Done right, it generates an emotional, visceral response that leads to engagement. Color dictates consumers’ perception of your brand, their purchasing decisions, their loyalty, and their level of connection to your product or service.
Color design can include: color strategy; color palette design; color roadmaps; defining color jobs (consumer focus, longevity, usage); and building brand-specific color stories + language.
Trend Forecasting
Trend forecasting is a window into the future heart and mind of your customers. It looks at the influences, challenges, and cultural shifts relevant to your brand and product space, connecting the dots from what is happening globally to what matters most for your consumers and your business. This client-specific guidance is distilled into actionable direction, initiatives, and stories. Trend forecasts are designed to deliver what is most valuable to you.
Trend forecasting can include: in-depth, comprehensive presentations that outline the influences, innovations, and inspiration driving seasonal macro trends; high-level insights on key trends; seasonal color-specific forecasts; ideation on how a brand can integrate relevant trends.
Merchandising
Merchandising brings it all together. It provides the framework for how color will be applied across categories and assortments. Successful merchandising plans balance newness, sustainability, and consumer expectations with business goals, retail concerns, and economic indicators.
Merchandising can include: detailed merchandising plans outlining color usage by categories and consumers; visual line plans; individual color CADs; active participation throughout the seasonal design + development process.
What Sets Me Apart
Diverse Expertise
Throughout my career, I have worked with Fortune 500 companies to start-ups in various industries, product categories, and geographies. Usually, at the same time. My point-of-view is rooted in understanding the intricacies of a range of approaches, philosophies, structures, and budgets. Knowledge centered on expansive experience leads to confidence in results.
Strategic Thinking
Color and trend touches more than design. It influences the functionality and success of multiple systems across a business – planning, operations, marketing, sales, customer experience. Any project I work on considers the complete impact of a creative strategy. Big picture thinking accounts for the health of the entire brand.
Strong Relationships
Open collaboration that invites curiosity, communication, and innovation is my preferred way to work. Building trust, honoring commitments, and surpassing standard expectations are key principles in my approach. I have worked with most of my clients for multiple years, and the majority of my new partnerships are from word of mouth or past clients with roles in new companies.