Wednesday, after presenting to the College of Textiles S.T.E.P. students, I took off for Washington DC to visit Color Marketing Group. I spent a half day on Thursday at their executive office in Alexandria searching through their archival color trend forecasts. Color Marketing Group is a nonprofit organization whose goals are to connect color experts from a variety of industries in order to develop current and forecasted color directions. CMG members are Color Designers involved in the use of color as it applies to the profitable marketing of goods and services. CMG provides a forum for the exchange of non-competitive information relating to all phases of color marketing: color trends and combinations; design influences; merchandising and sales; and education and industry contacts.
CMG's major focus is to identify the direction of color and design trends. CMG members then interpret that information into salable colors for manufactured products across all industries. CMG's primary forecasting opportunities are in the form of Conferences held twice annually, during which CMG members forecast Color Directions(R) for all industries, manufactured products or services. These Consumer and Contract products include: Action/Recreation, Consumer Goods, Technology, Home, Visual Communications, Transportation, Juvenile Products, Fashion, and environments for Office, Health Care, Retail, Hospitality/Entertainment and Institutional/Public Spaces. Major presentations, panels and Workshops are held at these Conferences to exchange information on color, marketing and design issues.
