COLOR FORECAST
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Freedom Tree’s strategic design approach enables a brand to implement product and service innovation, in accordance with their business plans. It is the comprehensitve color design strategy that serves as a building block for the future. We work with every aspect of the business to design, create and assimilate a color plan through various organizational levels and channel partners. We work to coordinate thinking in terms of design and color trend throughout our client’s organization.
Trend and Color directions are early indicators for creative interpretation by brands. A correct balance of interpretation and ideation helps brands to plan ahead and be ready with a trend-right product mix for customers.
We work at least two years in advance to track trends and formulate ideas to evolve directions for a brand. Trend tracking involves identifying places where we expect ideas to emerge. By actually being on location we do a visual edit of the environment and construct an accurate record of emerging design, concepts and color.
Environmental, societal and technological changes are all considered from a point of view of aesthetic impact. How climate change, newer technologies and socialization are impacting the way we live, work and play. Information is collated as analysis reports, image, color samples and swatches and a visually rich comprehensive presentation is made.
Freedom Tree has successfully anticipated trends for their clients and converted them into compelling concepts for their brands.
Being based out of India and working in Asia, Freedom Tree brings expertise in trends and color movement in the Asia region to ICI Paints for their Global ColourFutures™
International colour trends from ICI Paints ColourFutures™ is the colour communication tool from the international team of color experts at ICI Paints. They come out with contemporary color palettes which are driven by society’s changing moods and interests. The ColourFutures™ team works to bring international trends well in advance so the brand can take these ideas into color roll out.The team draws on a variety of sources; from research groups, colour marketing, trade and retail exhibitions to design influences from the worlds of fashion, technology, architecture, music, nature and popular culture. Trends are drifts, inclinations and movements in a prevailing direction.
The Global ColourFutures™ is launched as a book, color cards and events. Country markets use it as a starting block for ICI Paint ranges, color roll out and communication. In Asia; China, India and Vietnam have taken ColorFutures™ to the market with large events celebrating the theme stories and colors via road shows, room installations, fashion shows, competitions, print and electronic media.
THEME SELLING
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Theme selling is using a forecast idea for designing a product range or communication. Every brand must have a story to tell. In a modern trade / retail scenario, brand stories need to evolve year upon year (if not seasonally).
In a retail atmosphere, a customer’s purchase behavior is influenced by how information is presented to them. Themes create excitement, differentiation and are also a forecast guide to future purchase. Themes should match a brand’s objective and meet the target consumer needs. Therefore themes need to be simple yet inspirational. These also need to have a sense of continuity so that they can carry the story forward creatively to the next season.
Home Town is a Future Group concept of large format home stores. They are set to open a chain of 8 stores across India. Home Town is making the home decoration experience very simple for the customer. By creating a room set format, Home Town will excite and educate the new homemaker enabling them to take home not only products but ideas.
Freedom Tree creates strong story directions for retail lines which are given to merchandisers and designers well in advance. This helps all buying, sourcing, design of product lines, fashion styling for events, product brochures to modern trade, in store visual merchandising and brand communication to be synchronized. The design themes are based on emerging lifestyle aesthetic directions, a mix of tangible information layered with softer intangible ideas that can form an emotional connect with the brand for the buyers.
Freedom Tree Design was retained as trend and design custodian for creating the looks in the one hundred mock ups. Three collection themes were decided. All rooms, living, dining, bed and bath were designed around those ideas. Furniture was matched to lighting, accessories, furnishings, and wall and floor surfaces. FT worked with the HT design team to get merchandise grouped along themes. Every vendor in partnership with Home Town had to be able to showcase their products to the best and FT worked closely with them to select and place products in the mock ups.
The themes brought together the HT in-house designers, outside vendors and in-store sales people on how to curate and arrange the chain store for various locations.
“The range and width of product on offer can be bewildering and curated collections could be a USP”. Jacob Matthew, Founding Partner Idiom Design.
Three Themes were created for Home Town.
COLOR PLAN
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A color plan is a tool of aesthetic efficiency for a brand. A business plan is supported at every stage with a good color plan that uses resources of time and materials optimally.
For brands a color plan is the core of their identity. People relate to colors as much as to the brand marks. The brand exists in print, as product, in retail and office space, personnel uniforms and online. Core colors have to be extended with care to take brand persona correctly dressed into various verticals. Freedom Tree delivers a radial color plan as palettes, color combinations and simple color material matrices for implementers and designers to follow. Creating a Color Plan for a brand is problem solving and practical.
BP ERGO manufactures and markets furniture for offices. They are the people who create the experience for brands at work! Ergo’s tag line is Pleasure at work. Pleasure enhances productivity. Color is one aspect of our work environment that gives us pleasure. It can thus make us more productive and focused at work. Office systems have to reflect the brand image of the organization and at the same time add to the architecture and interior of the space.
Business process outsourcing is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Indian economy at the rate of 50 % growth. The socio-eco impact is felt by a large urban and young population; immigrating to larger cities and 2nd tier cities. Today many Indians are exposed as consumers to global information and ideas and they expect the same at work.
Freedom Tree, devised a color and materials program using the three stage process of analyzing Predicted Trend, Deductive Research and Creative output. The movement of colors in across industry and environment is researched over a period of time. Research, design and communication is based on the NCS Color standard. In this way, veracity & accuracy of color is maintained from information collection to production & orders.
The materials and color palette has been put together keeping track of international color trends and modulating them to the context of India.
In this world of global standards and banality we need a sense of place context and particularity. The color plan is based on the way management constructs are influencing interior space design for offices. Evolving management constructs are changing the way office space is designed. The office itself is a brand experience, and a narrative of the brands journey. Freedom Tree resolved this complex need for expressive materials into a color matrix plan for BP Ergo which became a language of efficient aesthetics between BP Ergo and their business buyers. Businesses are focusing on:
1. Product Position in the market place.
2. New nature of Business Processes today.
3. Creating a Community of workers.
Benefits of the Color Plan for BP ERGO
The Reflections book traces the inspiration behind and gives cues on the use of Color palettes. It includes a color matrix to refer to for materials and colors for each component. A shade card arranged according to hue of the seventy colors and various materials available. Detachable material samples that can be placed next to each other for color match and for presentation boards.
At Ergo factory there is Inventory Reduction because of optimization of material purchase. Ergo has perfect color match across materials: Fabric, paint, powder coating, laminate and lipping is in the same color standard.
A Quick Ship program from factory is in place based on the Color Plan to deliver the product speedily.
Freedom Tree designed a deck of cards as a training tool which is a ready reckoner of the color strategy. Training workshops in NCS and the Color Plan have been conducted for all sales and management and even partner architects giving them confidence with color and materials.
A 360 degree approach has integrated the color plan throughout the business process of the organization; right from sourcing and manufacturing; consultative selling; value addition for end users and the architect community. The color plan has helped to build the brand equity in the market. This ultimately positions the company as an innovator and a thought leader in the modular office furniture industry.
WORKSHOP
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Workshops are ways to invigorate thinking and build color capability in the organization.
Types of workshops: Does your market research need to decode color for packaging? Do you need workshops in color matching for your production line to maintain accuracy in color? Do you need workshops for your sales force to confidently take the color plan to the end consumer? Do you need an inspirational workshop for your entire team and channel partners, to make them realize how color can win in the marketplace?
Freedom Tree design studio has a unique understanding of color holistically. We work with a world standard color system, the NCS which gives us capability in color science. Our design practice and affiliations enable us to understand trend. Our experience in working with industry has given us the competence to understand the needs of brands for their consumers.
Freedom Tree conducts tailor made workshops in trend and color for organizations.
There are standard formats in which Freedom Tree Conducts workshops and then there are the customized ones.
They are described in detail below:
2 DAY WORKSHOP: The two days Workshop structure is designed to make participants understand facts and clear myths about color. Then thru a series of presentations and actual color exercises the team learns how to visually classify color in a way that makes it comprehensible without instrumentation. Case studies on color work are shared. This is the most necessary tool for companies to work with who base their business on aesthetics and color.
Participants in the workshop can be from Technical, Design, Marketing and Sales. This workshop helps to create a common language amongst all the business divisions and maintain accurate record of color movement and sales. BP Ergo, EID Parry ware, Portico NY, Levis India, Godrej Interio, Kansai Nerolac.
Sanyogita Chadda, Head Design, Levis India wraps up color and trend workshops better than we could tell it.
When we first came across the NCS Color Workshop I had no idea what it was all about. We invited Freedom Tree to attend our line presentation at Goa so that they could see what we do in terms of product and also in terms of colors used. They gave their views on the tones of the colors used from a retail perspective. We realized it would be better if they ran a workshop for the designers and visual merchandisers. A few of the key takeouts were as follows-
- Helped the designers to understand color as seen by NCS.
- Helped them to navigate the color chart.
- Provided understanding of how color works and how it can be used effectively by using the correct tonality of color.
- Post the workshop they were told how to redo their palette and the resulting palette was more holistic and better balanced in terms of tonality.
- We found that the designers were more sensitized to the topic of color and when they reworked their palettes based on feedback post the color navigation the entire look was balanced.
- We would be using NCS for the next season as well until color navigation comes naturally to the designers.
CREATIVE WORKSHOP: A trend session could go into more detail as an 'ongoing workshop', where research and trend info is thenworked on with a design team to translate it into visual ideas, and mood boards and color palettes for a season launch. Creative Workshop for the design team to assimilate Trend directions and use ideas for their product lines. EID Parryware, Godrej Interio, Levis India.
‘Conceived as a showcase of Godrej Interio’s cutting-edge capability in the field of Furniture & Accessories design, the Godrej Knowledge Centre, has in fact, transcended its brief of industrial artistry. A series of workshops led by Freedom Tree; our creative agency, helped us in directionally freezing on the design and conceptual make-up of this unique Centre. The Godrej Knowledge Centre, apart from providing a showcase showroom experience for customers & sales people has also provided a channel for the budding young design talent of Godrej Interio’s Design Team.’
E.Venkat, General Manager Design Interio Division Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Pvt. Ltd.
‘INTRO TO TREND’ WORKSHOP: A trend session for a day, would explain what a trend is. How it applies to your industry. Sharing of case studies on how to create color palettes for a particular trend and take it to the selling space.
CUSTOMIZED WORKSHOP: Sharing new design and color innovation through seminars for sales training, channel partners and specifiers to integrate new design through go-to-market activities. Asian Paints, BP Ergo.
The Color strategy has been integrated throughout the business processes of the organization. This has been aided by customized color workshops. Right from sourcing and manufacturing; consultative selling; value addition for end user businesses and the architect community. It has interfaced with people from all levels within the organization. From front end Sales personnel to Factory personnel to Senior level management. Users as well as Sales staff can feel confident that the colors in the combination are all selected such that they will look good together.
COMMUNICATION
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To communicate color design or services is to take the mystery out of making color choices for people. Color is something people love, yet are not confident to use.
One of Freedom Tree’s most required services is to take color to the consumer in a manner that makes a brand product lines comprehensible, attractive and create tremendous color impact in print or in a space. As designers we create the concepts and experience for brand, product or service. With a team of competent graphic designers and space designers we are able to create synergetic communication for a brand to roll out.
The Knowledge Center was a collaborative effort between Godrej Interio’s and Freedom Tree’s design teams. The brief was to create a center of information on office spaces. A look had to be put together for Godrej Interio’s office furniture products in various categories, integrating the product lines increasing customer confidence in the organization’s design capability. Today a single concept is carried through to bind the distinct stories across brands, individual products as well as highlight the differences in categories!
Freedom Tree conducted a series of workshop for Godrej Interio’s design team to arrive at the concept of Engineered Nature. In continuing close collaboration the space is designed to stage Godrej products. All communication for Knowledge Center is written and designed by Freedom Tree.
The concept of ‘Engineered Nature’
How did the sunflower seed-head pack itself into beautiful spirals?
When did the leaf learn to turn to face the sun?
Why did the dandelion seed take flight?
What made trees grow upwards and not all fall down?
It turns out that the engineered nature of plants and other life forms have hit on the secrets of formal organization long before we humans followed them into this mysterious discovery. Nature, imaginative by necessity and a survivor by evolution has found what works, what is appropriate - and most important - what is sustainable for the foreseeable future. A living plant is a responsive organism just as our approach to designing office furniture is receptive and reiterative.The Godrej Knowledge Center, is a metaphor of the Godrej philosophy to work and to work spaces, translating the insights of the natural science of plant evolution into engineered objects.
Taking it into the space
This concept is taken into the space through communication at various levels. At the first level, Super wall graphics are designed to express the attitude of the concept, Engineered Nature. Layered with Informational text, these super graphics come alive as a part of the space, melding naturally into the interior design. Zones have graphics and information that are specific to the experience of being in the space. Godrej shares its competence in a ‘White Paper’, information for the main four categories; ‘Roots’ an office owner’s handbook is designed basic information on topics like ergonomics, acoustics etc.
Virtual Tour
The journey that the brand has made to reach this stage unfolds at various places as one walks around. The communication has been designed to guide the viewer to understand the product as well as the space. Silhouettes of people line the walkway to the entrance, calling attention to the entrance.
Shocking green techno-organic graphic invites you into space explaining the concept of engineered nature. Right next to the entrance, a section of space is dedicated to new office concepts. A state of the art ‘futuristic white office’ is a focused area of work; graphic cutouts with interplay of typo on the wall create an interest against white modernist furniture.
In the Osmosis lounge, metallic typo against veneered backdrop, invites you to experience the industrial legacy and continued relevance of Godrej. In the Auditorium, three black and white posters evoke the memories and transitions that Godrej has gone through over the years. Moving ahead, a green glass chalkboard is designed with cute graphic illustrations of ‘sprigs n shoots’ against Kids and training furniture bringing a smile to our faces. Two very subtle graphic walls educate you about the Apical and Nodal, the metaphor for executive Desking and Conference furniture . The Executive Lounge/Office spaces are luxurious yet minimal. The mood setting for Hospital furniture is created through a graphic layer of never ending soothing forests, whereas the lab goes into microscopic ‘crystallized’ view of nature.
A long transitory passage is beautifully displayed with the collection of Interio’s Seating range. Super wall graphic of designers’ sketches from Interio shows the process of design and evolution of the product. In the graphic, the designers’ thoughts then bloom into graphic fractals of contoured chairs to form flowers.
This passage ends into what you see as a bank of little postcards that have the images of various leaf configurations. The leaf growth patterns are a metaphor to the way modular furniture grows in an office space. Inspired from them, OPOS is displayed in restful yellow greens.
Freedom Tree successfully translated the idea of engineered nature through the space design, language and visuals for Godrej Interio!
A single message coming out of a trend and color direction is the strongest communication. When we use the same concept in different ways; whether in space or brand collaterals, the entire brand speaks with one voice.
CLINIC
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The color clinic is a quick prescription for a situation which calls for an expert second opinion!
At various stages of product development and color direction one seeks validation and course correction. Freedom Tree can be retained to comment at critical stages during design development. A Color Clinic is a great way to engage with Freedom Tree for important touch point evaluation. This may be a comment on color tools for market research or to give an informed opinion on the aesthetics, material and color of product lines; or to comment on communication.
A single meeting, a quick diagnostic, and you have a color cure!
Whirlpool Global Consumer Design centre for Asia Delhi approached Freedom Tree to tweak colors for their washing machine lines. Whirlpool positions the brand as a “Partner to the homemaker” truly celebrating the contributions woman makes to the home. Targeted at the modern Indian woman, Whirlpool has successfully become a ‘Perfect partner to the demanding homemaker’ of today who seeks to nurture herself as well as home & family.
Freedom Tree recommended a course correction in colors. Avoiding the pitfalls of powder pretty pastels we gave strong smart colors that reflect the contemporary decision making woman of today. A color clinic achieved three things for Whirlpool in a quick intervention.
A single base color for all washers hugely saving inventory. A single graphic control panel with the right jolt of color and ‘clean reference’ to the washers. Fresh contrasting colors and one neutral option for the lid. This is the only inventory change a factory line or a store will have to carry. So the hassle of matching metal body to plastic is over!
Whirlpool launched the colors as a ‘mix and match’ option creating huge excitement and confidence for their sales.
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