ColorForward 2022 Predicts a Happier Ending to Isolation
Think the Covid-19 pandemic is all clouds and no silver lining? Think again.
ColorForward 2022, the Avient annual color forecasting guide for the plastics industry, presents stories associated with four societal trends along a palette of colors that can be expected to influence consumers in the next few years. The Imago storyline focuses on the duality that the Covid-19 has created.
Upside to isolation?
Under the shadow of Covid-19, people are isolated, craving both physical and emotional contact, while digital communication (Zoom meetings, online chat rooms, etc.) have become a way of life. By 2022, however it is expected that there will be a welcome return to a physical world, even as these digital forms of communication continue to be a part of life. The ColorForward team also expects this time of relative isolation to create an opportunity for introspection and allow people time to discover previously hidden talents and interests that can be expected to stay with them long after immunization and treatments lessen the dangers of the virus.
In biology, imago is the last stage of growth and development for an insect during which it attains maturity. Thus it becomes symbolic of the optimism with which the ColorForward futurists view 2022, when people emerge from this a hopefully temporary separation and even loneliness, having gone through a personal transformation that actually makes them stronger in the long run.
The colors
The colors of Imago are a good example of a broader trend toward yellow tones, Zest-fully-me, for instance, is a warm, mango-like yellow orange, symbolizing the discovery of hidden talents. A pinkish coral called Cheek to cheek represents the need for the human touch. A neutral shade in the Imago palette called Intan, which is the Indonesian word for ‘raw diamond,” is uncolored and fully transparent embedded with bits of golden glitter, reflecting the idea that people can emerge from a time of cocooning and reinvention in an improved, polished state. Full dive is a phrase that refers to immersive virtual reality and this bluish purple -- which also has a glitter effect inside – symbolizes the duality of fantasy and reality that people are finding on-line. Finally, Soul search is a dark, metallic bronzy brown that incorporates a white and turquoise flake effect to capture the ideas of reflection and introspection.
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