Pilot 1.1 The Mystery of the Color of the Year
Welcome to only stagers in the building. Become an insider sleuth as we explore the corridors of home staging.
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Good morning. I'll take your hat. Your latest case is on your desk and your guest is waiting on the phone for you. Welcome, sleuths to only stagers in the building. I'm your host, Julea Joseph.
Today we peel back the mystery of the color of the year. Each year, every paint company announces their color of the year, along with a new collection of paint colors. We in the home staging interiors and real estate industry excitedly anticipate these paint colors like expected parents at a gender reveal party. Some colors are so embraced that every home is swathed in them. Others fade away, like putting baby in the corner. How do they come up with these paint colors? And how do we make the right paint color pick. To answer these questions and help solve the mystery, Mary Hoffman joins me on this case, a painting color expert to get down to the bottom of the paint can.
So, Mary, I have known you for over 20 years. Tell our listeners a bit about yourself.
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Well, Julia, as you know, I have been with Benjamin Moore literally my entire life. But I've been employed for 43 years now as an architectural design rep at the moment. What I do is I call on architects, designers, stagers, anyone who specifies paint for the most part. And my job is really to help them get through their process. I also have spent about ten years working for the director of color, doing some color research and some forecasting. But now I'm back to my favorite thing of all and doing the architectural role for Benjamin Moore in Chicago. So with your history of working with Benjamin Moore over all these decades, if I can say that, then when did paint companies start having a color of the year? Well, color. The year started to get very popular as a category that discussed probably good 20 years ago and not everybody jumped in right away. You've seen color forecasts from like Pantone a little different than what we do at Benchmark, but the interest has always been there is what's hot. You know, you go back to the beginning, people would walk into a store and say, well, what's the right color? What's the best color for me? So in essence, we can go back to the very beginning of our paint history and say, Hey, there was always somebody looking at what's hot at the moment.
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And with that, how do paint companies release their color of the year and come up with this? You know, this whole process of developing the color of the year and always that additional paint palette that goes with it? Well, when you do color forecasting and that's where this all starts, is you're looking ahead and so important that your listeners understand that a color is forecast a couple of years before it becomes color of the year. Were watching color at all time. So when we go to look for that palette, the color layer, we're looking at kind of exploring what's happening globally, both, you know, here in the US and all around the world, we kind of collect some really great inspiration, creative inspiration. We try to then also study the impact of technology and you kind of bring all that together, the environment, what's going on there, all those
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issues in the world, and kind of analyze, I guess you could say, all this data and we try to distill the information really into kind of find what colors are really becoming very influential. So then we look at things through the lens of paint, and that's where we different than a lot of forecasts that you see out there, like the one from Pantone. We're looking at how that information will relate to the colors in a interior environment and also a little bit on the exterior. So we're always looking at trying to keep things up there for you that will keep your project relevant for years to come.
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Yes. And for those people who don't know that what Pantone is that you're referring to is that like Mary, who works for Benjamin Moore, which is a home paint company as well as commercial and industry? Pantone is a. More color authority in terms of marketing or graphics. Pantone colors are used in the fashion industry
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and trickle on all the way down to a KitchenAid Mixmaster. Even cars, you know, can be pulled from a Pantone palette. So Pantone is is kind of a more circular type of color color choosing authority, whereas the paint companies are more specifying in zeroing into environments, correct? That's pretty correct. Yeah, it is very different. That's why you will find when you look at palettes from that perspective of Pantone to benchmark their colors really are talking about those accessories in the home where
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they're trying to find the translation to the color on the wall. So right. And very complementary. Yeah.
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And sometimes they coordinate and other times they're completely different. People did excited about these new colors. But I did notice that many paint colors Pink companies release their color of the year kind of at around the same time. But Benjamin Moore, who you work for, introduces their color of the year a bit later, later in October. Why is that? Well,
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you know, it has a lot to do with trying to make the predictions correct, but it's also getting the marketing in place. There's a lot involved in releasing the color. For example, our release is going to be on Wednesday the 11th at noon on our website. We do a live 2s casting out there and that day and I recommend to your viewers to not miss this one in particular should be a very interesting relaunch of our Color the year. Now, why we wait a little bit is that getting all the pieces in play the way we want it to be? And we typically like to be one of the last to show our colors so that the research we've done, can that be capitalized by someone else at the same time?
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So when people are getting all excited about these new colors of the years, are there any expert tips that you can share about the do's and don'ts of using some of these colors?
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Well, I think one of the things people need to understand when we talk color of the year, it doesn't have to be exactly that color. That's the color family that's talking about. It gives you a kick off place. So, you know, depending on your project, sometimes you may want to make a lighter version of it or a darker version, you know, that is really the same. Using a trend report. And that whole palette that you'll see that comes out with it, it's it it is really what we see as the impression. But a lot of people translate it. For example, if you chose a color wheel, look at 2023 at the moment because I can't talk 24 yet, but the 23 colors, for example, that whole beautiful 1s color that we had out there that year with the Oh, isn't that terrible? Yeah, I have a blank in the mind of their color. But the raspberry blush, the raspberry blush may be a great color, like for the front door of your house to get you excited and that's when you want to look at those more intense colors in the palette or the intense version of a color that comes in the palette. Because remember, front doors are a in architecture. One of the things we tell you that when people pull up to the house, the first thing they need to see is the front door because they need to find a way to get into it. So, you know, I always love looking at the color of the years as my inspiration for exteriors because they have time tested value into it, you know, and we choose colors that Benjamin Moore, we're saying here's should color this year. But we know that that color is going to be around for a good five, seven years. So that works really well for that entry for the most part, like that, that whole color of blushing, having that beautiful coral and you're seeing it everywhere. That raspberry blush has really taken off when we introduced the last
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October. Well, and how ironic that the Barbie movie came out like, you know, right after that. And so for the whole, you know, the whole spectrum of pink has been very, very popular for 2023 and two. I think I remember taking a class with you that when you're talking about that front door, that so many people will choose a 1s color, you know, an accent on color that normally that you you would pick for a front door that they would pick for the garage door instead. And I remember telling you, saying to people that, you know, it's it's probably not the best choice unless you want people who walk through your garage and say,
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well, and that's part of the architecture, right? You know, when you pull up the house, the first thing you see is your garage door. And that's fine for you if you can't find your way into your house. But you really want the the garage doors to disappear. You don't want them to stand out. The standout item on the outside of the house is the front door. If you can't get people in to see that house, all the stains. The world won't make a difference. So. That's right love them in. So
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I'm that same note on the staging side too is that I you know when when in the design field you put on a home stagers hat that we we have to be careful that some of these really intense rich um of you know maximalist colors that have been creeping into the color palette for paint colors over the past couple of years, which is, you know, which is really, really exciting on the design side. But when it comes to the staging side that we have to kind of, you know, you know, pull the reins back a little bit about some of those intense colors and that and I like that. You said when you you know, you talked about the Pantone with accessorizing. That can be translated as well that a color that has become popular like you know, for instance, like you talked about the raspberry blush of last year when it comes to staging can just be used in accessorizing or in textiles as a pillow or a throw and and not be used in this, per se, the paint world. But but to be celebrated in a way that you're on trend in attracting those ideal buyers. So I think that we've kind of cracked the case about some of the information that we were seeking in this in this mystery of the color of the year. I want to thank Mary Lockman for joining me today on the case of the mystery of the Color of the year. Now with the new Benjamin Moore color new palette getting released this week, will you come back to another podcast so you can discuss this exciting new color for 2024? Mary
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Uh, Julia, I appreciate the offer. Of course I will. For you.
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That's Awesome. So thanks to our listeners for coming in today and kick it off your shoes and put your feet up and take it off your hat. And I want to thank Mary Hoffman or Benjamin Moore for sitting in on this mystery.