ColorForward™ 2025

Focus on Mid-tone Colors Expressing a Feeling of Resiliency Expected to Trend in 2025

ColorForward™ is the annual color forecasting guide for the plastics industry created by Avient’s ColorWorks™ team. It presents four global trend stories that capture the emotions expected to influence consumers’ responses to color over the next few years. The result is a unique package of inspirational materials, including 20 aesthetics, to help plastic product designers and marketing professionals make more informed color choices for new products and packaging. ColorForward 2025, the 19th edition of Avient’s trend and color guide, identified the following global trend stories.

• Easy Peasy: Repairability and modularity are the keywords to describe the Easy Peasy trend. Consumers want to be able to repair products rather than throw them away when they break down. Modularity supports repairability and allows consumers to acquire a product adapted to their needs. Some governments have already created legislation to push manufacturers to include modularity and repairability when designing consumer products. Ultimately, Easy Peasy is about the consumer taking power and driving change. The Easy Peasy color palette is brighter and more optimistic than the other palettes. 
• ELEVENS:  The name ELEVENS was chosen because repeatedly seeing the number 11 is said to signify important changes are headed one’s way. In numerology, 11 is considered one of the three “master numbers” symbolically linked to transformation and changes. While Easy Peasy denotes hands-on localized changes, ELEVENS indicates changes on a much larger scale and in multiple areas: demographics, global economies, consumer power, and quality of life for everyone. The aesthetic palette comprises different color effects and even weight differences. The general darkness of the ELEVENS palette indicates seismic changes that we will need to face.
• Destination Salvation: Surviving the next major crisis is often weighing on people’s minds. Destination Salvation is about finding creative ways to be ready for when ‘it’ is happening – whatever ‘it‘ may be. Bunkers are back, and so is survival preparedness. But it’s not just individuals who want to be prepared. Some governments are also looking into survival scenarios such as building self-sustaining areas or exploring space to find our next potential home. The Destination Salvation palette predominantly features aesthetics representing escapism.  
• Carpe Mortem: The Carpe Mortem trend reflects on the emergence of a more accepting and balanced attitude toward death. Examples of how this attitude can materialize are searching for longevity through medicine or virtual existence, or thinking about our legacy through choosing more sustainable ways for our last act. The palette includes ethereal and complex effects to highlight how we use science, technology, and maybe less conventional approaches to celebrate life and ensure its continuity after we are gone.

Contact us to learn more about each trend story's color and effect palettes!