Perfect Product Color Design
TechmerVision color grids for use in materials color design.
Exploring Color in Product Design
Your design thinking has been working overtime creating, innovating, and designing the coolest product for your amazing client. The form has been finalized. The functionality perfected. The material and finish flawless. So now the project is reaching the final design stages and you have not yet decided what the product line’s color offerings are. You think to yourself, “Why didn’t I do the color explorations earlier in my development process so I would not have to rush and I would have more color options?” Feeling frustrated with yourself and knowing that color communicates powerfully with your customer, you conclude that you need to get from raw inspiration to final color accurately and swiftly.
As a color design professional, you know that having the right color at the right time will sell more products. You want your color palette to resonate with your target audience in a way that provides ongoing engagement. Empowered with a color forecast and your customer color preference research you are ready to explore the product line’s future color palette and neutrals to find the color(s) that can be successfully created in your selected materials and finishes.
Wouldn’t it be great if you had 100 harmonized colors at your fingertips that were based on your forecast, research and mood board color directions to explore without context? What a timesaver! To locate the perfect product color your unique design deserves let’s explore these four new ways of instantly exploring color while saving time and money.
Six warm-gray water bottles with color accents. Image: ©Simple Modern Style, S. Sampson
Four Ways to Powerful Product Colors
Harmonized Forecasted Palettes
Let’s say the color forecast direction for your target market has about 20 colors. Many of these hues could work just as they are but your product line cries out for a unique yet future-forward palette. By combining select colors from your forecast, market research, and mood board color directions to create a color harmonized grid you open up a world of colors that will expand the directional palette. Newly released from hours of searching for the perfect color combinations you can now dive deep into the application of this supplementary forecast palette.
Color harmony in automotive design generated by TechmerVision. Image: ©Simple Modern Style, S. Sampson
Update Stale Colors
Need to revive a dated product line to be on-trend without losing brand identity or redesigning the form and function? Digitally color mix your current color palette with the latest directional hues to establish innovative color subtleties that push your products into a new decade.
Applied color in automotive design to distinguish a brand. Image: ©Simple Modern Style, S. Sampson
Depth of Undertones
Finding the right hues for your product’s lifestyle persona allows your product to attain visibility in the chaos and connect with customers. Explore colors of a future consumer lifestyle vision with forecasted colors intertwined to create your product’s own nuanced future hues with detailed undertones. By doing so, you can elect a remarkably forward-looking hue with powerful undertones that is unique to your brand.
Applied color in consumer electronics to appeal to customer aesthetics and for brand differentiation. Image: ©Simple Modern Style, S. Sampson
Value and Saturation
Finding the right hue seems like a big challenge with all the emotional and cultural connections to consider. But once a hue or hue family has been decided, the selection of the ideal value and saturation begins. Visualizing these nuanced hues in combination, free from context, allows you to narrow down the variations that you need for your product’s prosperous connection with your customer.
A TechmerVision-generated grid allows for fast color exploration and interaction of color in materials design. Image: ©Simple Modern Style, S. Sampson
The Leap
“Accurate color is not a simple process. It takes a team of trusted color and material experts to exceed your product’s potential. Techmer PM’s color design team employs TechmerVision, a digital color tool, in collaboration with you to explore hundreds of harmonized color possibilities while compressing your color selection process. Leap from digital to physical color with the strictest accuracy and empower your brand to drive the future of color.” — Sandra Sampson, CMG, Vital Color™, Engagement through color.