2027+ Color Forecast — Athira's Portfolio

Power of Play, a 2027+ Color Forecast

COLOR FORECAST • TREND FORECAST • DESIGN RESEARCH •

Play is not superficial, it's a powerful tool for emotional resilience, healing, and social change. In a post-crisis world where there is a lot of climate anxiety, political polarization, etc., people are turning to creativity and self-expression as a form of therapy, activism, and identity-building.

-All images shown are taken from Unsplash and Pexels
-Information gathered from WGSN’s STEPIC Strategies 2027 article

Story Direction

This color story reclaims playfulness as power. High-chroma hues such as hot pink, bright orange, vivid yellow, and neon green become tools for healing, identity, activism, and connection.

Rooted in WGSN’s STEPIC Strategies 2027, play shifts from frivolous to strategic, therapeutic, and political. This palette fuels resilience, sparks curiosity, and amplifies underrepresented voices through strategic joy, soft cultural expression, and creative healing.

These colors offer joyful resistance while embracing softness, weirdness, and visibility. Paired with hand-drawn textures, layered media, and expressive type, they thrive in collage visuals, playful packaging, and activist campaigns.

Looking ahead, gradients, shimmer finishes, and bio-based neon pigments will push “playful” into sustainable, future-facing design.

Story Drivers:

Resurgence of creativity post-AI introduction
Emotional resilience
Serotonin boost

Material/Finish Direction

Handmade, imperfect, and DIY-style materials, rough/unrefined textures, potentially mixed media. Handmade finishes and textures ground people in the physical world, offering emotional security in the current digital atmosphere. (applicable to the Visual Communications and Consumer Goods industries)

Final Color Explorations

I chose 5 final colors to represent my research findings. All student forecasters in our cohort presented their ideas and created a combined set of colors to represent OSU on an organizational level.