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2026 COTYS: Kinda Meh

Color forecasting is the serious behind-the-scenes science, math, and data crunching that drives what we consumers see on the racks, the shelves, and the showroom floors. Global and year-round, what they’re working on is usually a few years ahead of when consumers will see it on the racks and shelves, and on showroom floors.

The COTYs are Color of the Year, the major paint and coatings manufacturers’ annual exercise where they take a color, add some marketing fairy dust, then POOF! share their vision for what will be big this coming year along with the how and why.

If you catch a whiff of snarkiness in the above statement, alright then! A career in the people-space-things business, I’ve found marketing hooey guarantees a short shelf life. These are the two qualities that together, make fads white-hot and create trends that stick around:

Novelty: We get bored and crave new.
Real: Micro and macro, they reflect and respond to something that’s really going on

Color directions will almost always vary substantially, because everyone wants to make a statement. Can only remember one year where most were on the same page. It was 2022, tail end of the pandemic. Cool, soothing grayed blue-green tones were the order of the day. Some silvery, others more saturated, but the message was clear, our walls needed to comfort us, proving the point above.

Design community-nip, the announcements for the upcoming year are staggered over a few weeks, usually late September to mid-October. The last of the prognostications landed, and my take is kinda meh.

OK, yes. In smaller, select applications I can see their having a place: A powder room, a front door, or an accent wall. Or as exterior shades. Pics showing them in monochromatic, color-drenched rooms aren’t helpful. A white ceiling, or a bunch of white/lighter trim would do many of these a favor.