Dulux chose Tranquil Dawn as its colour of the year for 2020, but something bolder would have better represented the year ahead, says Michelle Ogundehin.

Dulux's colour of the year for 2020 ? a hazy, muted green that recalls a sort of pale Chinese celadon mixed with sage and a smudge of grey ? is intended to embody "our desire to treasure our most human qualities and give our homes 'The Human Touch'".
However, more than the actual colour it is the why behind the hue that interests me ? the rationale of the process before the product, if you will. Quite aside from the complexity of trying to assign a single shade to represent an entire year.
Dulux's approach is nothing if not rigorous. Every year its parent company, Akzonobel, gathers an international team of independent architects, creatives and designers at its Global Aesthetics Centre in Amsterdam in order to debate the cultural and lifestyle shifts deemed significant for the year in question. The brief is to compile as coherent a global picture as possible of the mood ahead. Last year, I was invited to join them. To be clear though, the translation of this three-days of brainstorming into physical colour is the remit of the in-house team alone, we're just sketching the outline for them to fill in, so to speak.
The brief is to compile as coherent a global picture as possible of the mood ahead
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