Color Palette Trend Forecast for 2024 (Camp Clique Replay)

Episode 239: In this episode, we'll share highlights from an recent webinar session provided and sponsored by Flower Clique. Join Ellie LaFever as she delves into the exciting world of upcoming color palettes in the floral industry. She shares the insights presented by J. Keith White at the 2024 AIFD convention, featuring the American Floral Trends Forecast. Ellie LaFever also imparts valuable knowledge providing an in-depth look at the latest trends and how they apply to a local business.

This Forecast is made possible by the AIFD Foundation. Their research and development make this forecast possible. Don't miss this opportunity to be ahead of the curve in the dynamic world of floral design and retail.

For the webinar session with slides, join here. Camp Clique Session #3

Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

With this, you can have fun with those different dyed or sprayed flowers, especially the orchids. The orchids almost look kind of alien-like.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome to the business and pleasure of flowers. We're your host, Fondala Fever. Thanks for joining me today. It's been a weekend of challenging travel, let me tell you. And if any of you are out there who are traveling this weekend, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Who would have thought an update in a computer system would cause the world to be in chaos the way it was at the airport? A little bit on the crazy side. Beside that, it's been just a really fabulous weekend. And I wanted to get on here and introduce our podcast this week is going to be a recap that Ellie and Lori did about AIFD Symposium. We cut a little bit of the recap of AIFD because we really wanted to focus in on the trends report. And Ellie kind of explains where it came from, how it came about. But it really does help all of us to know what are those trends projections and what we can do to take a look at those trends and apply those in our own businesses. So let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Now we're going to go over some trends for 2024 and beyond. These serve from a reference point based on the trend forecast from the American Floral Trends, which is led by Jay Keith White, AIFD, as the creative director. And then this collaboration between all of these different people in the industry that are in fields of expertise, definitely for doing trend research and diving into that. So there are five different trends and concepts that we're going to go over. I have led with the research done by him and produced, and it's online. It's available at American Floraltrends.com. And then I've kind of compiled that with some of my own personal research, just in inspiration images. So the first one is called Embrace. This one is a fire element, so it's supposed to ignite the senses. He says it's an individualist maximalist approach. So that means doing something big, but doing it in your own way and doing it boldly. The colors are tangerine and hyacinth as the dominant two, and then followed by yellow and olive bright as kind of the secondary. And then the smaller proportions are with ice blue and pacific blue. So you can see it's just like very bright, bold, all about being unapologetic. To me, this palette represents a response to like the constant noise that is in our lives and is on social. You know, we're getting fed so much information that it's kind of hard for us to keep our attention on one thing, right? This concept to me just kind of screams like, notice me, with its bright colors and patterns, and it's just fun and interesting and dynamic and lots of texture. He included this piece of art by Henri Matisse called Woman in a Hat. So Henri Matisse was influenced by various styles and bold colors. And then from that, he developed his own style, which is now called Phauvism. Somebody out there will know if I'm pronouncing that right or wrong. So basically, he took all of the information that he had and made his own style. So the whole idea with this is to kind of absorb all these inspirations, but then be your own Matisse and channel that for your own art. There's a lot of pulling patterns from history, such as chinocery motifs. Donna and I went to Maison d'Abjet, which is a trade show in Paris. It really sets the stage for the trends for the future coming years. And we did notice a ton of this. This was just quick snaps that I took. You can see the bold colors and the use of fruit and vegetables and things that are just playful, and you can't help but look at them, right? This vase is literally the same colors from the palette, which I thought was so interesting. Basically, anything vibrant here goes. So vibrant colors, different textures, interesting blooms paired in that color palette, and then having some sort of fun, interesting vessel or accessory. It's hard to do fruit with flowers, but for events and stuff, it's totally possible. And then here is kind of the realistic view of it, right? So you can see on Instagram, this is kind of even a more milder version, but you know what I'm talking about. When I say you pull up your phone and you see the bright colors everybody is working with these days. And then we have four images here that are actually flower click products, kind of as inspiration for what fits into this embrace color palette. Okay, second one is whisper. So whisper is kind of the opposite of the embrace. It's not screaming notice me. It's kind of whispering, which almost at some point is more dramatic and powerful in some ways when it's not screaming at you. But I just love the like juxtaposition between embrace and then whisper. Whisper is open and airy. The dominant colors are ivory and honeycomb. And then the secondary are blush and heather-ish. And then third is blue sky and herbal. So it's very much light, it's an air element. It has hushed and restrained narrative of air-inspired compositions. And then here's just a few little eye candy for you to look at for this color palette and concept. So with this one, it's all about having those delicate blooms, the dogwood, the cherry blossom, those soft and romantic colors and flowers. And then for containers, something that's reflective or airy or reflects kind of that lightness are good things. They reflect light, those would be good ones. And then another element is like soft ribbons, ethereal ribbons, and then wispy foliage. And then the practical application, we have this blue one, this luna blue design is a flower click design. And then we have a few others here as well. So your practical application using glass, kind of a romantic vessel, and then those soft fluffy plumes. All right. So the third one is rejuvenate. So rejuvenate is all about freshness and fluidity. It's balancing vibrant colors with calming elements. As you noticed in the first one, and there will be in the next one after this, fruit. So fruit we saw at Maison was like everywhere. I don't know why, but so there's a lot of little overlapping things with fruit in a few of these concepts. So that's one thing to notice. But this one, there was a lot of lemons, like the display at AIFD had a lot of lemons incorporated. The colors are raspberry and perfect pink, and then lemon and coral as a secondary, and then accented by Robin's egg, which really to me represents the water. This is a water element, so that represents kind of the water and the movement. And then the cranberry is really nice to kind of ground it so it's not all just super bright. Here are some fun inspiration images for this, and you can see these really cool containers. These ones are by Accent Decor. They have a ton of fruit stuff right now, as well as this coral chinocerie. This yellow one here is actually an exhibit that Vonda and I saw at Maison, which was like this entire small house. Everything was yellow. It was really cool. A lot of different textures. So even though everything was the same color, you saw the contrast by the different textures and everything. Very cool. With this color palette in concept, it is using Xenia, Scabiosa, Dahlia, Gerbra, Clematis, Gloriosa, Rinoculus, those types of blooms, and then kind of pairing it with some fun, playful elements. And if you can't incorporate that blue in, you can always make it realistic by throwing in some of the those balloons as a color. Like you could do a bundle here, as you can see on this page, do a really bright, colorful bouquet with the balloons. And then here are four flower quick images. Yes, Lori.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

I have to tell you, this color palette, the one you're just talking about, my daughter's best friend, Sydney. This is her bouquet color palette. So she sent it to me, but she didn't have this dark color, it was just all very like coral and a little bit of blue. It was very light. And so it needed that dark. So because of your Canva class, I took a screenshot of her bouquet, I put it in our Canva, I went in edit and used AI, and I told it to make these roses this cherry red. Wow. And she literally took the picture back to her florist and said, Can we add a pop of this? And the florist was like, Oh my gosh, absolutely. That looks amazing, Lori. I'm the florist.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

And my daughter's like, How'd you do that? I was like, I watched Ellie's Canva. You're smart. That's great. Makes me happy. Yeah. Love it. Okay, number four is called Umbra. This one is kind of intergalactic. The quote is transcends an enlightened cosmic beauty. And this one's just like fun and funky and literally out of this world. There are a lot of interesting blooms that kind of lend themselves to be almost alien-like. So that's where I would encourage you to have fun with this concept. The colors are purple and deep blue, followed by gold metal and fresh green. And then lastly are thicket and flat black. So while it has different shades of like purple and blue, it's kind of grounded with the gold tones or like the matte black or like the tarnished kind of look. Another trend that I've seen, and I actually at AIFD, I was wearing with my dear outfit like flower tattoos or wearables. So those I've seen a lot on social as well, as you can see here, and it almost kind of looks alien-like in a way, but super cool. My designer Trish put K-tape, like the kinesiology tape, on me because it's like removable to the skin. And then she did flower glue on the tape with flowers. So that was kind of the application. I'm sure there's lots of different ways to do it, but that one seemed to hold up pretty well, and it wasn't painful when she ripped it off. So these are some of the inspirations, as you can see. I love this one with the garlic bulbs incorporated, almost like those purple garlic, and then the alien flowers. So it's really like organic shapes. Become, as we know, the alien flowers from the garlic family are very cool. A lot of that blue hydrangea that we saw at AIFD, very popular. And then these were at Maison d'Abjet. And you can see the velvet texture, those rich jewel tones, and then mixed with the gold and the silver and that tarnished. With this, you can have fun with those different dyed or sprayed flowers, especially the orchids. The orchids almost look kind of alien-like. Anemones, hydrangea, delphinium to get that nice blue, and then adding some interesting vessels. This accent decor one to me kind of reminds me of like Stonehenge, where it's just like a little weird but cool. So just look for that type of thing when you're trying to execute this trend. And then we don't have too many crazy funky flower click designs that fit this, but this color palette definitely is and inspired us to maybe for our next shoot, think a little more out of the box with how we can work this trend into practical retail solutions. Okay, lastly, this one is called Ambition. It is an appreciation for organic aesthetics. And really what this is doing is it's commenting on urbanization and kind of this human-designed, human-built world that, especially when we're on technology all day, just feels so artificial. And this kind of calls back in the earth elements into our so-designed by humans world. The colors are black cherry and wild rose. And then secondary are French blue and peachy, followed by those two really nice green colors, basil and moss green. So there's a lot of like free-flowing organic designs here. Very much an earthly color palette with everything, very organic. You know, you're bringing in a lot of mixed things like the foliage, like the elephant ear, different textures like that. We saw a lot of this plant at AIFD mixed in with designs. You know, you have cactus, you have aloe, you have artichokes, you have the sunflowers that um have that deep dark center to give it some dimension. Protea, Vanda's favorite, interesting vessels that have a ton of texture that makes you want to just touch it right there. So forage materials are huge, a lot of branches, a lot of woody elements, funky foliage, things like that mixed in with those blooms in like a burgundy color, like the peach, peachy pinks. And then here are just a couple vessels from Accent Decor that kind of fit the bill perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

So it's all about those bases. I know. Aren't these are what stuff material on those?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

I think it's like ceramic. Oh, wow. Like it's it's definitely hard and secure, not gonna break easily, but very cool. And then just a few ways to incorporate that organic maximalism into your daily life. I will say on my Instagram feed, and when I was looking at some designers, like tons of it, tons of this look, especially for weddings and events. Um, and it's like mimicking its environment outside. It's almost like it's an extension of the trees and the foliage surrounding it that's really bringing it into whether that's running down the aisle or things like that. And then Lori, you had noticed, and I noticed it here twice with these inspiration images. Calolilies, call lilies are like really back. I've seen everywhere. But not only that, like full stems. Yes, right? That's what you were saying.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Yes, in weddings, the wedding we were in Nashville. I mean, they were everywhere. The longer the better. They were literally ever everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah, so it's all about like the human world mimicking nature. And then we can see to tie it back to the beginning, these were all things from AIFD that were like, oh wow, that looks very similar to that ambition kind concept. Okay, so here you have kind of the full picture. Hopefully, this inspires you to recreate these things in a realistic, practical way. Especially I know it's hard sometimes to take things that we see on the big stage and translate it to reality, but I definitely think with these five, it's possible. So there you go. I'm gonna pass it over now to Lori, and she's gonna talk about what's trending in the retail world for clickers. Real world, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

We that's some really big thoughts, high, high inspiration. And so we thought we would sort of end this with some cool things that everyone here you could implement today, actually. Uh, I just took some screenshots of a lot of our members and of things they're doing that I knew they were doing that they posted on their social media that they're doing this summer. And take it for what it is. One of the things that a couple of our members are doing, and Ellie and I have noticed it more and more on Instagram and TikTok, and it's kind of trending are mocktails. A lot of people don't drink. I am not a huge drinker because alcohol triggers migraines. So one of a few of our members are doing these mocktails, the art of flowers and mock tails, and I just love it. This it's Teresa Meadows scent. She's doing them every month, is floral design and mocktail class, blooms and beverages. And so she has a fun mocktail recipe, and the name of it always aligns with a certain flower that's going to be in the bouquet. And I just think that is the best idea. And the other thing about it that's great is you don't have to worry about a liquor license, or you don't have to worry about drinking and driving or providing free alcohol, right? So you just do that. Another one of our members, well, more than one, kind of has taken that idea, and they do have a liquor license, or in their state, they are allowed to it, and they are making the strawberry basil margaritas, and they're doing a strawberry basil floral design class, and so they are making an arrangement that it maybe has basil in it. So they're just trying to come up with fun classes, and these classes are selling out, and they don't have to be hard designs, they are just opportunities for people to want to get together. And flowers by Jenny Lynn, she is knocking it out of the park. Heather is knocking it out of the park with her floral design classes, so is Jen at Beautiful Blooms by Jen with her ice cream. She does like a kids' classes and then adult classes. So uh if you can host classes, there are ways you can do it uh that you can do it easy where the cleanup's easy, it's a few hours of your time, you can be profitable. Uh and the other thing is you are building into your community and hopefully getting new customers because of that. You're getting your face in front of potentially new customers. Here's a few other things. I love what Ralph Giordano did, which I think he is insane. Vonda, wasn't he doing this like right during AI? Yes. Oh my goodness. He did this right before AID started, and we were like, what are you doing? We what are you doing? But he did pedals and paws. He did an open house and partnered with pedals and paws to align with a fundraiser, which we've talked about many times, and I think it's great. And he got a lot of sponsors because everybody wanted to come out and sponsor this. So there's refreshments of balanced house, and he did a create your own flower bouquet bar. Um, and it was great. I'd take your picture with pirates and just all of these things and custom sympathy. I know we've talked about Steve Vargala before, and especially for you, Flores. And guess I'm giving him another shout out because he still amazes me. He continues to amaze me, but he posts this week's custom sympathy tribute every week in the summer. Um, he tries to post something special. He did, I know he does more than one, but he tries to post something special that he did. Not only does that attract more customers, but it's fascinating to see, right? It shows his quality work that he is the expert in this industry. So it's kind of elevating his shop to be the best of the best. So these are two ideas. You I'm not saying you have to be an exact Steve Regala, but you can do some uh custom designs and start posting them. We've talked a lot about it's can sometimes be awkward to post sympathy, but you can do it. You can post your sympathy images as long as you are uh respectful about it. Christmas in July. I cannot believe how many of our Flower Clip members. We talked about it at Shop Talk last month. So many are doing Christmas in July. This is Flower and Balloon Gallery in Pennsylvania. They are doing a Christmas in July. And she's like, I'm just marking everything down, getting rid of all my inventory that I don't want so I can get new in. And they had a food truck, they're doing a bouquet bar, they're doing holiday flat photo ops, which is such a great idea to get those photo ops out of the way. Or your for your pets. I mean, pets aren't going to change much in six months. So go ahead and get your pet photos done. Great, great idea to bring people out in the summer for a holiday. I I would totally go if she was close to me, right? Because I think it's a great idea. And then this this has been all over our members only page right now about flower bars. And Ellie and I are a little obsessed. Ellie, have you gone to Flowers by Michelle yet to see this live? I haven't. It's brand new and I haven't been home. Yeah. Oh, that's right. So it looks so much fun. And they've been posting about it on their social media. They're making really fun videos and reels on Instagram. I think it's genius. I am not sure what their pricing is or how they go about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Looks like they have it on each bucket, the label of how it how much it is per stem. And then people can just go in, and this entire room is actually a cooler. So you're not having flower waste, like if you were to have all the bouquet setups. The one thing I noticed, Lori, between this and then the Christmas in July and Ralph's event, they all have a flower bar. So that's one kind of like constant weaving trend throughout is that inner element of interactivity with people. And um, which I think is really smart.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Well, and if you think about it, what I have been reading lately, and then even going through AIFD was trending, people want experience, right? Yeah, like an experience. And even going to a design class, I'm going because I want the experience.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Yep. You want to get your hands dirty yourself rather than watching Netflix. We want to be in person. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I love it. We offered a lot of tips and new ideas and things like that. I something you see trending that we didn't cover.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

You know, Lori, when you were going over the the uh mocktails and all that, then I was watching uh Life in Bloom, which is Jay Schwanke's show that's on a couple nights ago. And he was doing that. He did flowers and then he did little cocktails and he hit his ice cubes with the flowers in them. And when people see that, that makes them want to be a part of it. So if the local florist is doing a class, advertises something like that, they'll be like, Oh my gosh, I just saw something like that. And they would just like be in, I think it would drive more traffic to the local florist just because that's happening out there. Yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Yeah, love it. Next session, number four of six. We're almost towards the end. This one is next Tuesday called S'more Money, and Vonda's gonna be talking about consumer spending trends.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

And these are actual spending trends that uh we see within our flower click members. We have a lot of data, so we're gonna really unpeel that onion and be able to see what's happening, and that'll give you some food for thought going forward for uh this last quarter.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

So I'm excited about great. One thing before we get off, when we didn't talk about uh Palmage's presentation, that was it was really good, but at the very end, and I wrote it down in my notes because I thought it was very powerful. Because here we are talking about trends and looking at what other people are doing and looking forward. And he said all of that is important. We do need to keep up and see what's going on, uh, but at some point it's really important that designers don't forget to look within because you started you started doing this for your own self because you were passionate. You are a good designer, and sometimes you can get so caught up with looking at all the other stuff that you forgot to look within and design what you want to design. And I I thought that was really good. I thought that was really good. So take that for what it's worth. I think there's a balance there. You find yourself you are artistic, right? That was another theme throughout all of AI of D artistic art, art, art through everything. You have an art, you are artistic, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Yeah. I think it's very easy when we're constantly seeing the noise to kind of lose yourself and you lose your own art and sense of your own personal design. And so with that, like, yes, take the color palettes and the textures and like these elements, pick and choose, and then make it your own. Don't focus on just recreating that exact trend, right? I think it's yeah abstracting the what you what you need. Take what you need and leave the rest.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

That's basically it. Yeah, that was really good, Lori.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed spending time with us because we enjoy spending time with you. If you did, make sure you hit that subscribe button or add the business and pleasure of flowers to your Google morning routine or your flash briefing on Alexa.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

We look forward to seeing you next week. So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and business.