BASF Releases Tenth Annual Automotive Color Trends Report

BASF’s (Southfield, Mich.) 2020-2021 Automotive Color Trends CODE-X collection showcases a variety of shades and effects with reimagined whites, the darkest of jet blacks and a variety of vibrant color spaces in-between. The colors serve as inspiration to automotive designers for vehicles in development to launch in three to five years. Many of these colors have effects or textures, making them a tactile experience as well as a visual and emotional experience.

The global key colors include a grayish green, a warm beige and a coarse gray. As new thinking drives big transitions in the values around society, identity and progress, this collection represents a hopeful and positive blend of physical and digital worlds.

The key colors of EMEA are distinct, yet soothing. There’s a huge variety of effects in these colors that are inescapable, yet approachable – nostalgic, but new.

Asia Pacific’s key colors are warm and emotional, reflecting a positive, flexible attitude for change, action and the future. The colors are not black or white, but more blurred and floating, like human emotion.

North America’s future color designs build off advancing colorant technologies that exhibit a greater sensitivity to the environment, projecting techno-sophistication with responsible grace and simplicity.

South America’s key colors combine a level of seriousness with a free-spirited dimension of society. The colors are playful and unpretentious, with a wide array of dynamic effects to represent the knowledge that the stakes are high and full of purpose.

Every year, designers of BASF’s Coatings division from around the world study future trends which they use as foundations for developing surface, texture and color positions. They draw inspiration from sources including industry, fashion, consumer products and nature. They share their research with BASF’s customers – the automotive designers – and help develop the colors of the future.