Transcending the future of colour into the present

There’s colour, colour everywhere; but what does one do with it?  This was a question that brought forth myriad answers, when Akzo Nobel Paints Lanka, the manufacturers of Dulux Paints held a workshop for its Face book fans in Sri Lanka at Park Street Mews Colombo recently. 

This was the first time that global Fortune 500 company Akzo Nobel, the world’s largest manufacturer of paints and coatings held a workshop for its Sri Lankan Facebook fans based on the theme, ‘Dulux Let’s Colour Sri Lanka’ on the very simple aspect that influences everyone’s life, colour. In fact, the Sri Lanka Face book fan page has over 6,000 fans collated in a short span of six months and has become a very popular social media catalyst and an axis for creativity and artistry, forging ideas and  suggestions that are centric to its axiom, ‘Let’s Colour Sri Lanka’.  It was this platform that had prompted such interest in colour and forged multifaceted discussions that saw Dulux moot this workshop, which was an opportunity to not only gain practical input, but also interact with the Dulux Team and gain further insight into colour and decorating.  

The event infused the keen creative eye of one of Sri Lanka’s internationally showcased designers and Dulux Colour Ambassador Kanchana Thalpawila. Punctuating the workshop was a live webcast which brought in Head of the Global Aesthetic Center of Akzonobel Heleen Van Gent who also answered queries from the participants about colour and decorating. Akzo Nobel revolves on a mission to ‘Add colour to Lives’ and this indeed was the premise upon which Van Gent explained that the Global Aesthetic Center which was founded in 1992 with eight designers is a specialist creative centre based in Sessenheim Holland. “Colour trends can emerge from every possible corner of society,” she said, stating that, “Some colour trends can emerge rapidly and some may evolve more slowly. Hence that is where our Colour Futures concept comes in.”  She also explained the annual process where the Akzonobel Aesthetic Centre invites an international group of experts drawn from fashion designers, architects, interior designers and colour gurus to predict colours for the next year, a practice it has had since 2000. “Through this unique Colour and Trend Forecasting Facility, Akzonobel creates leading edge designs and builds knowledge and understanding of the power and impact of colour in both commercial and domestic environments.”

The Workshop took the participants through an interactive process, which gave them hands-on experience of discovering the endless possibilities that colour and creativity can imbue into people’s lives. There was sheer enjoyment all around as participants were prompted to mix, match and play with colours until they were confident when they emerged with the right fit.

Dulux takes the concept of mixing and matching colours a step further. Through Dulux Previews, a digital visualisation tool that allows customers to mix and match colours digitally before painting their homes. More details on this revolutionary concept of digital colour visualisation is available on www.dulux.lk

Workshop participants who spanned the ages of 18 to 60 years of age were extremely enthusiastic and keen to use this new fount of knowledge of colour they had garnered from the workshop. Having never quite observed or perceived the multi-faceted look and feel of colour in quite this way, they were keen to use the Colour Futures 2012 colour palette to formulate colour into their lives, homes and surroundings, by picking out colours from their environment as they were taught to do and then mixing and matching shades, tones and tints to add ‘Colour to their Lives’.