Childhood Joys: A Celebration of 2018 Color+Design

With a happy, creative energy and infusions of heritage design, we celebrate the simple joys in life. Our trend story, Childhood Joys, is inspired by the simplicity of Scandinavian design with a Bauhaus spirit, a nod to heritage with a refreshed, modernist view of Mid-century design. This smart, chic and cool trend inspires new ideas with collaborative design efforts — ways to push color and design forward, making everyday life better, easier and filled with simple charms. Life is better with this community spirit — finding new ways to get together, work together, move around and live with colleagues, family and friends.

Childhood Joys highlights color and design that showcases traditional comforts with a slight nod to a fairy tale or two. These friendly, childlike spaces allow one to be free to inspire new designs. To achieve the mood of these friendly spaces, design should gear to cheery, graphic sporty color and design. Also, giant playful graphics and urban graphic patterns that play on city architecture infuse pop to the basics.

These cheerful areas are inspired by humor in the everyday and to breathe life into Childhood Joys, include Scandinavian design influences, origami shapes, balloon shapes, rubbery surfaces, and softened colors that breathe a sense of well being. Additional motifs, materials and textures that assist in creating a complete Childhood Joys trend story include:

• Graphic color and contrasting textures. A touch of bright and graphic to the basics
• Lightweight felt and paper
• Cotton, prints, twills, washed denim, chambray, wood blends
• Classic and childlike plump, heathered fabrics
• Terry or quilted knits
• Low-key geometric shapes, curves and waves

• Twisted yarns, two-tone, mock solids, woolen looks
• Metallic netting and micro-perforations inspired by sports and camping
• Pixilated motifs, plays on new versions of pointillism.
• Tubular metal or flat ribbons sketch light shapes in space, suspended in graceful balance, weightless
• Figurative animal shapes – functional or decorative

Color is inspired by chic, sophisticated basics and classics blended with near-primaries of blue, green, orange. This fresh and pleasant range of colors include Scandinavian color influences, which animates the palette with the near-primaries as alternatives to the traditional Bauhaus design color palette.

To read more about Childhood Joys including in-depth case studies and further research on this trend, as well the other four trends, click here to download our 2018 color+design trends report. To view all the 2018 trend colors at a glance, visit us here.

All images with permission and courtesy of Bethany Nauert Photography