discover the details behind comex color of the year

comex and designboom in a conversation about color

The use of color in our daily lives is more than a random choice, the trends that influence these decisions ‘portray the moment we are going through as individuals and as a society’ — as Javier Sosa put it in Comex’s ColorLife TRENDS 2024 book. Throughout history, various factors, such as the availability of pigments and types of coatings, have determined the choice of colors in art, clothing, and our environment; however, with the advancement of technology and tools such as color matching, the number of shades available to us has increased exponentially. In order to facilitate the selection among thousands of options and provide a guide to applying color like an expert, Comex created the ColorLife TRENDS program.

This initiative of the leading Mexican coatings company of the PPG group, emerged as a collaboration of creatives from different disciplines and experts in various industries to propose exciting color trends that inspire people to transform their spaces. For the past 16 years, Comex ColorLife TRENDS has brought together select groups of individuals who provide valuable insight through their expertise on relevant regional and global events. By taking into account the factors that influence cultural production, the program has succeeded in creating color schemes with remarkable resonance not only for the creative industries, but on a national level.

Ardiente, ColorLife TRENDS Color of the Year 2024 | all images courtesy of © Comex

In a special collaboration between Comex and designboom, Liz Galván, director of Comex PPG’s ColorLife TRENDS program, and Vanessa Vielma director of designboom español, talked in a forum with participants from previous editions of the ColorLife TRENDS program. This talk — which included the participation of textile designer Marisol Centeno, architect Michel Rojkind, and industrial designer Emiliano Godoy — allowed us to delve into the creative universe of the program to understand how the colors of the year are chosen, the importance of color in creative processes, and the relevance of trends at a national level.

Comex created the ColorLife TRENDS program to facilitate the selection among thousands of options

into the creative universe of Comex’s ColorLife TRENDS program

colorlife trends: driving creativity through color

The origin of Comex’s ColorLife TRENDS program lies in its mission to encourage people to enhance their spaces and support the growth of creative industries in a context where Mexico had not yet positioned itself as one of the most important hubs of international design. Liz Galván, director of the program, said: ‘Comex had this raw material that is color, and sought to generate a common thread to add to the world of creativity. It was through ColorLife TRENDS that Comex managed to inspire both the general public and professionals to brighten their spaces. We understand that selecting among more than 3500 color options may not be easy, additionally, there are macro and micro trends that affect in creative terms the decision-making process. The media, radio, film, and television, permeate our collective imagination, so we wanted to make a very serious analysis of these trends and propose a color of the year that we know will be attractive in different sectors – architectural, automotive, fashion – and that will generate a phenomenon of differentiation among other projects.’

The ColorLife TRENDS forecast is carried out in a group dynamic, where experts meet in an isolated context for a couple of days. The dynamic seeks to generate a dialogue that fosters a sense of community and takes advantage of the multidisciplinary experience of the group to arrive at a selection that yields four color palettes made up of nine shades, plus the color of the year. Liz Galván also revealed that these color forecasts used to be made outside the country, but with the professionalization of the Mexican creative industries, the conversation turned inward, contributing to issues of sustainability, diversity, and inclusion. It is worth mentioning that Mexico is the only place where PPG Industries — a company with a presence in more than 70 countries — conducts an independent national color selection project.

the ColorLife TRENDS forecast brings together creatives from different disciplines and experts in various industries.

the program’s mission is to propose color trends that inspire people to transform their spaces.

The choice of color in the creative process

The ColorLife TRENDS forum with Designboom also allowed us to delve into the kind of conversations and processes that happen among the creatives who have participated in the program. Marisol Centeno, Michel Rojkind and Emiliano Godoy shared about how for them color is a key element, not only in the appearance of a design but in the discussions and context surrounding each project — from the rebelliousness it demonstrates to break paradigms in architecture, to the common nexus that color represents when communicating between different creative industries. Even the predilection for certain color trends provides important cultural information that enriches and deepens a design. ‘At a generational and social level, we reflect in those colors the things we are thinking about, and somehow they become almost a posture, something you say to the outside, and that aspect is important,’ said TUUX co-founder Emiliano Godoy.

Marisol, founder of the textile experimentation atelier Bi Yuu, also talked about color in terms of sustainability and circularity, since the environmental implications of the dyeing process have directly modified her designs: ‘While in Bi Yuu there are many processes where color is part of a narrative and conceptual research, now dynamics have been changing. We have had to drop certain colors due to a lack of sustainability. Even on the subject of natural pigments, because there is a very important issue that is not discussed in the artisanal environment, that there is no water. That affects a lot of crops and harvests, and perhaps it is an uncomfortable conversation to put on the table. But for the same reason, as part of this issue, some of our most iconic and color-saturated collections are being discontinued, and we’re choosing to only work on collections with more sustainable colors. We had an exhibition where we presented part of the development of a new collection dyed only with avocado pigments’.

during the forum, creatives shared the implications of color in their industries

A color of the year from Mexico

The selection of a ColorLife TRENDS color of the year transcends an intention to standardize the creative projects of the season and seeks to celebrate Mexican culture and essence. The forecast process involves a high degree of complexity for the creatives in identifying the social phenomena present at the moment, as well as the layers of meaning that colors carry. Michel Rojkind shared: ‘Color can be from the most superficial to the most profound, so when you begin to understand the layers it can have, it unravels a new way of seeing life in general. It provides a richness, the more you get into it there is a greater richness of vocabulary, and the sharpness with which you look at life can increase’.

Similarly, the program recognizes that although Mexico is a country full of color, it is easy to resort to white and neutral minimalist where the absence of color seems the simplest option but does not necessarily reflect our identity. This is why the ColorLife TRENDS forecast, hand in hand with the nearly 300 creatives who have participated in the program, is given the task of assisting in the production of a cultural language through its raw material, stimulating the expressiveness of the people, and positioning local creativity internationally through a color of the year from Mexico.