Trend Forecasting at Oltmans van Niekerk
After graduating from textile design and moving to the Netherlands I was drawn to Studio Oltmans van Niekerk as I knew them for their pattern design and aspired to join their team. The studio took me in, but their focus had meanwhile shifted to trend analysis and forecasting. OvN publishes annually two trend books focusing two years ahead. Trend forecast book Vision 20/20 offers a clear overview of world wide cultural, technological, economic and social trends. Colour Flow relates directly to the long-term trends that are identified in the annual lifestyle book Vision 2020.
These give insights into the changing needs and values of the future consumer and guide the designers in their work. Main clients for these books are clients from fashion, interior, electronics, and automobile industries.
Project length
3 months
It all starts with research
Trend forecasting is a process that involves a lot of research and the information is gathered from all around – newspaper articles, lectures, places visited, quotes from people, certain words that keep coming back, a picture, a colour, and many other things. It differs from regular research processes as it is guided by the professional knowledge of previous trends, general societal movements, and intuition.
Filtering out the important
Once it’s time to sum up the research, all the bits and pieces are gathered and discussed. Topics grow and form from the comparisons and discussions. Through several filtering rounds the most important stories and trends form that end up in the trend books.
It is important to look into the future and see how the topics would develop further — how people react and how things will impact their lives in the long run.
Bringing the trends to life
The topics grow into trends that, in the trend book, open the themes and characteristics in different aspects. These are always accompanied with explanations and commentary, inspiring visuals, colour cards, and material swatches.
Research into long term global developments (5-10 years) is the foundation of the Vision book. What is currently happening in the world affects people’s thoughts and values and therefore what kind of products will be needed in the future.
Colour Flow shows how to translate these directions into new colours and materials. These are not limited by season or fashion but attempt to analyse colours and materials for a wider and longer term perspective. Trends with a long term influence that could feature for five years or more.
Creating inspiring visuals
Translating the trends into visual imagery to inspire the users of the trend books, requires a thorough understanding of the trend and what it stood for, but also an immense amount of creativity.
How to form the research into something that visually communicates the trends and inspires designers in their own creation.
Creating of the visuals is where the imagination was really set free. Cutting up vegetables to set these in composition only to spray-paint it white or heading to the nearby park to collect leaves, branches, and flowers to cover these in gold leaf was not only fun, I feel in this process I became more resourceful seeing opportunities where I previously hadn’t noticed them.
Imagining the materials of the future
Creating material samples for Colour Flow requires a thorough understanding of the trends and developments. The main purpose is to illustrate and materialise the trends and inspire the designers.
In the creation of the materials, all the experimental textile techniques were put to use. Among else, I found myself altering clear plastic into bubbly surfaces, deforming light-weight fabrics and charring veneer over a gas burner.
Conclusion
At Oltmans van Niekerk I started to understand the immense power research holds — foretelling the future relies on research and adept synthesis of it. Looking back, now that the trends I worked on at OvN have passed, it is even clearer.
The skill, I know I’m the most thankful for, that I learned working at Oltmans van Niekerk must be project management under tight deadlines. The two annual report books could swallow immense project hours, yet the clever project management techniques they have in use assured that no deadline was ever crossed.
“Oltmans van Niekerk can recommend Helen Selirand as a creative, curious and passionate person, she loves to make and create. Helen has a good eye for colour and design and she can work independently, is efficient and quick and handles the projects given to her with responsibility.”