Introducing Dulux’s Colour of the Year 2024: Sweet Embrace

Dulux has announced its Colour of the Year for 2024, Sweet Embrace. In this article, Dawn Scott, Senior Colour Designer at Dulux explains more about the research behind the colour, introduces its complementary colour palettes and explains how to use the shades across different sectors.

The story behind Sweet Embrace

For the last 21 years, Dulux has been using trend forecasting to identify a Colour of the Year that reflects the current state of the world and needs of building occupants. Every year, Dulux colour experts and international design professionals come together for a Trend Forecast brainstorm and share insights about where the world is heading.

This year’s discussions found that although we’re better informed than ever before, we’re still searching for peace of mind, clarity and moments of joy. In a world that feels fragile and complicated, people are seeking a space where they belong.

The Colour of the Year 2024, Sweet Embrace, is a reflection of this insight. Named by Dulux for its ‘arm around the shoulder’ quality, it can be used for projects across all sectors to create a sense of belonging for building occupants.

In addition to Sweet Embrace, interior designers can also draw inspiration from the three complementary colour palettes: Warm, Calm and Uplifting. Each palette can be used alongside Sweet Embrace to support the end use of a space and evoke emotion in building occupants.

Using the Dulux Colour of the Year across sectors

Sweet Embrace and its complementary colour palettes are incredibly versatile and can be used across any sector:

Education

The key to designing education settings is making students, staff and visitors feel welcomed and motivated. Whilst Sweet Embrace provides a neutral backdrop that is perfect for the main walls of a classroom, the more saturated tones in the Uplifting palette like High Summer can be used to draw pupils’ attention to the teaching wall.

These bolder tones and the soft pastels such as Fragrant Peony can also be used to bring joy to education spaces, without being too overstimulating. This is key for supporting neurodiversity and making the environment comfortable for everyone.

For areas such as libraries or time-out spaces, the Calm palette is recommended. The sage greens and sea blues, which provide that subtle link to nature, will help students to unwind and feel at ease.

Hospitals

Across the healthcare sector, designs are moving away from industrial, sterile aesthetics. To support the softer and more comforting designs that are now becoming the norm in hospital settings, the Calm palette is recommended. Its links to nature make the colours feel restorative and soothing, which is ideal for creating positive environments for staff, patients and visitors.

Care homes (and dementia care)

For care homes, one of the top priorities is ensuring designs aid wayfinding and help residents maintain their independence. To do this, it is recommended to use softer hues like Sweet Embrace on the main walls and more saturated tones from the Warm palette, like Peanut Butter or Winter Pumpkin, for doorways and feature walls to make these elements stand out.

Offices

To create spaces that improve focus and boost productivity – whilst also offsetting high-intensity and stress – use the Calm palette. These colours bring the outdoors in and help people to relax, improving wellbeing in the work area.

However, to boost people’s mood and provide an upbeat welcome to those entering the building we suggest the Uplifting palette’s brighter yellows like High Summer and Ochre Sands for lobbies and entrance ways.

Hospitality and leisure

Hotels and restaurants can really benefit from the tones in the Warm palette, as they can be used to create a home-from-home feeling and make people comfortable. On the contrary, to encourage playfulness in leisure spaces, use the Uplifting palette.

Social housing

For social housing, it is important to make residents feel at home as soon as they enter the building. The Warm palette is ideal for this, as the tones can create a sense of belonging and connectedness. The colours chosen for communal spaces are also incredibly important and should bring joy and imply friendliness – which can be achieved with the Uplifting palette.

Selecting the right paint for the sector

Sweet Embrace and the Colour Futures palettes can be selected across a wide range of Dulux Trade products. For education environments, we recommend highly durably paints like Dulux Trade Scuffshield Matt. This tough, water-based emulsion contains ultimate scuff resistant technology that is designed to protect walls against scuff marks being left behind from items such as shoes and bags, to help keep walls looking good for longer.

To further support hospital specifications, a tough, scrubbable anti-bacterial paint like Dulux Trade Sterishield is an ideal hygeine solution as it inhibits bacterial growth, preventing the spread of germs.

Finally, for busy hospitality, commercial and housing projects we suggest using durable paints that can be easily cleaned. For example, Dulux Trade Diamond Matt can withstand 10,000 scrubs (which is the equivalent of five hours non-stop scrubbing) so it can be repeatedly cleaned, ensuring that unwanted stains are easily removed without damaging the paint film on the wall – making the professional finish last even longer. This product also supports sustainability goals as it is 99.9% VOC free.

Dulux Trade Colour of the Year 2024, Sweet Embrace, and the palettes are available to specify from 12 September 2023. For additional guidance on the use of these colours refer to the Dulux Trade Colour of the Year 2024 Specifier Brochure here.

If you’d like to feature your news or stories on SBID.org, get in touch to find out more. 

If you’d like to become SBID Accredited, click here for more information.