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		Puppy Bumpers®, from In The Company of Dogs, are lightweight, ultra-high pillows that fit around your dog’s neck as a low-tech safety device. These rings are a gift to any little-dog owner who knows how easy it is for their tiny pet to wiggle through fence, deck or child-gate bars. One look at the print and color choices of this innovative company and you know that your pet will be fashionably on-trend in his or her bumper, while staying safe as a baby.
		Our Pet’s Company’s Running Mouse™ is sure to keep any cat busy for hours. This clear-ball-encased squeaky mouse toy is the next best thing to a successful mouse safari.
		Lickety Stik® from PetSafe keeps water from becoming a spilling, splashy mess on the road by allowing your dog or cat to simply lick the top of it.
		For older medium-to large-breed dogs with failing legs and hips, Solvit has released their Carelift harness system. It can help elderly or disabled pets up stairs and into vehicles, or can give extra aid on walks.
		PetMate’s Cat Glow (glow-in-the-dark) cat collar helps feline owners keep track of what’s going bump in the night. Your cat’s no longer a nighttime trip hazard and much less likely to get accidentally stepped on in PetMate’s trendy selection of prints and colors.
		The Solvit company scores again with their bolster dog-bed throws that spread easily over sofas or stuffed chairs to keep your pet comfortable and your upholstery pet-hair free.
		Just for the fun of it, Petlinks Systems has created a floor-mat cat bed with temptingly attached feathers, fringe and stuffed toys, so kitty can go from nap to playtime and back again in the blink of an eye.
		You’ll capture faraway worlds of leisure for your cat with PetMate’s Kitty Kahuna Lounge.
		Dogs stand at the treat closet like it’s an ATM, waiting for something to be doled out. To help us remember not to overfeed them, Stella & Chewy’s ® gives them quality over quantity with their wide array of flavorful, yet small, “kisses” snacks.
		Many dogs want to do a job that gives their walks purpose. Patchwork Distribution knows this. Their Classy Ruff Dog Backpack is just the thing to help Fido feel like he is carrying his weight in the family.
		Bling collars are coming back, but dog necklaces are more unique. Check out the newest styles from Mhu Ghu.
		Neons are emerging in apparel and home, so why not for your pet? Bowls from Yak Pak are not only touched with neon color, but also shown in a trend-right ikat look.

Here are some of the most-recent offerings from the High Point Furniture Market. Some extra features are simple while others are surprising. Some are visible and others are hidden away. They all appeal in this value- and convenience-driven marketplace.

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Even though produce-sack fabrics had less exposure, vintage accessories were going strong, and many were updated with big scale. Case in point: framed art from Elizabeth Lucas. In these pieces, blown-up elements such as script, postage stamps and postmarks seemed to be viewed through a filter. They coalesced into a blurry backdrop for a single, fully colored songbird that wore a crown, was patterned with egg-shaped spots and took up most of the visual field.

When the subject matter was classic, larger scale provided another way to infuse designs with modernity. For example, a three-drawer chest from Hickory Chair was an attention-getter with a super-wide Greek key stripe running from the top down each side of the front. For contemporary pieces, going big emphasized the graphic aspects of any design. Rowe’s contemporary watercolor floral felt more like a series of loosely associated, oversized blossoms than an allover pattern.

Regardless of the style, large-scale design meant there was more to love in every design:

• An oversize tweedy plaid, made up of lines with the look of giant, running stitches, was new from Bernhardt
• Norwalk’s big, graphic peony floral stood out even more on a white ground
• The parrot on Michaelian Home’s square toss pillow was so large that only the head and torso fit on the front
• A single, oversized dragonfly appliqué on J. Douglas’ lampshade reached from the bottom of the shade nearly to the top
• A single, giant kilim-rug motif was enough for the seat or back of Dovetail Furniture’s chair
• Burton James’ giant ikat made a dramatic upholstery cover
• Sam Moore’s giant paisley floated over a mauve ground

There will be much more to come as the trend toward large scale ramps up throughout 2012. Expect it to dominate the landscape by 2013.

Click an image for a larger view and/or to start a slideshow:

The Walker Art Center blog, one I highly recommend you follow if interested in any aspect of art and design, had this post which pointed to a highly interesting factoid about my own State of Minnesota:

“A new National Endowment for the Arts survey finds there are 2.1 million Americans employed as artists, including more than 42,000 right here in the Land o’ Lakes. Minnesota ranks fairly well: We’re among the top 14 states that have the highest percentage of the workforce employed in the arts: 1.5 percent, compared to the nation-leading New York, where 2.3 percent of the labor force is involved in arts industries. Minnesota leads the nation in the concentration of jobs in book publishing, with eight times more publishing jobs — largely in the Twin Cities — than the national average. Minneapolis’ concentration of theater jobs is twice the national average.“

Why should you care? The artists and designers among you are OK…if you have the strategic chops to see what’s coming next in your category or within the industry. If you are in product engineering, hopefully you are aware that your artistic and design skills most likely are pretty weak and you can make great product, but there’s just something missing.

If you want to ensure your products are embraced by the masses, then make certain you engineers and product designers are engaged and collaborating with people whose artistic and design sense is equal to your engineering abilities. Artists and designers, connect with your engineering and product design peers and connect.

Download the report here (PDF) and see how your State ranks.

Electric Romance (click image for a larger view)

ELECTRIC ROMANCE
If a downturned economy has led to the fiscal and ecological wisdom of “fix it yourself,” the contrasting and coordinating colors of this self-confident trend has put “mix it yourself” in the forefront. Sturdy and dependable shades of brown and gray are the backdrop for brave splashes of bright red, green and navy. Surpassing cultural borders, this carefree trend effortlessly mixes Chinese and Flemish patterns with modern American plaids and stripes. Folkloric handicrafts and rustic embroidery suddenly look contemporary with the use of simple finishes and patterns. Leather and full-bodied woods are teamed with tulle, lace, pearls and ornate prints and textures to say that folklore is a worldwide phenomenon that bridges many generations.

Dark Attitude (click image for a larger view)

DARK ATTITUDE
Quietly elegant, this casual, contemporary trend focuses on a wide range of surfaces. Smoked glass meets grainy denim and gleaming woods pair up with shimmering metals. The palette is very dark, ranging from plum to gray khaki to an almost-black navy. Exquisite materials in extravagant shapes are only curbed by vintage details. This trend embraces every nuance of metallics, from gold patina to animated surface designs.

Light Innocence (click image for a larger view)

LIGHT INNOCENCE
This modern, ethereal trend speaks of natural sunlight playing upon pastel surfaces. The lines are more curved, than linear and the predominant palette ranges from the lightest of whites to matte silver, with tans, pastel olive and abalone lavender and pink adding muted color. Subtle material groupings offer understated texture and patterns. This trend features filigree metalwork, slatted furniture, laser cuts and minimalistic designs.

Radiant Modernity (click image for a larger view)

RADIANT MODERNITY
By far the boldest of the key 2012 Ambiente trends, this 70’s-and-80’s-inspired styling and palette is larger than life with its most radiant colors being a nearly neon yellow, 1970’s turquoise, and a coral-kissed pink. A dark plum and ink-pen blue anchor the color range. Very-large and straightforward graphic patterns are teamed with unexpected arrangement and gradations. Plexiglass, high-gloss lacquer, technical textiles, and oversized geometrics help make this retro trend contemporary.

On the product front, a two-color trend was afoot. It included everything from Lawrence McRae’s grillwork-patterned lamp bases to Grace and Blake’s orange-silhouette appliqué dogs on solid-linen pillows. Subjects ranged from classic horses to mid-20^th-century geometrics, and from Deco flowers to 18^th-century toiles. There were zigzags, playing cards, triangles and lace patterns.

Click an image to view a larger size or to start a slideshow

The style of these designs varied. Some were complicated (like Thomas Paul’s pillows featuring horses in an engraved-look print), while others looked bold (Jamie Young’s white-on-gray geometric lampshade). What mattered most was not the level of detail, but the simplicity of the color combination.

According to Christen Maxwell, who showed a range of two- and three-color designs on throws, pillows, linen trays and more, “Simple color combinations are safer for more homes.”  This approach connected with another phrase I heard at the show multiple times: “You don’t have to think.”

These words suggested the objective behind everything from the use of neutrals to offering bedding and pillows in straightforward, coordinated patterns. They stem from a belief that consumers today are so busy and so stressed out that they don’t want to spend time making decisions about their décor.

Gift and decorative accessory categories are not the only ones talking about making the buying decision easier. Kim Shaver, VP of Marketing Communications at Hooker Furniture says their Bradington Young division’s Comfort@Home program offers point-of-purchase and education to make buying leather upholstery an easier and more-educated one.  Erika Woelfel, Director of Color for Behr paint acknowledges that keeping it simple is a new consumer reality. That’s why Behr has developed smart-phone apps, navigation devices and communication tools to help consumers reach color decisions faster. When consumers save time and are happy with their color decisions, everyone wins.

Now does feel like the right time to make things easy. With so much uncertainty about the future, and so much on most consumers’ plates, making décor feel more manageable is a perfect response.

From Galt International (Click for larger image)

Spring 2013 is looking positively plump with possibilities.

Consumers are countering recession hangover by seeking out creativity in their lives and within their homes. It helps them make a more personal statement, and adds excitement and fun. This extends especially true for products targeted to seasonal celebrations.

The Trend Curve has taken all this to heart in preparing the next version of our Spring Forward™ color-and-trend forecast. We have spent the past few months re-visioning the top everyday décor trends for 2013, letting our imagination take them into the seasonal realm. Then we added the originality of an eclectic mix of trends from the fashion runway. The result is nine solid trends for our upcoming Spring Forward™ 2013 color-and-trend forecast.

Equally strong will be the influence of the Baja on country looks. The Southwestern U.S. will sway the styling and colors of everything from Valentine’s Day candies to Mother’s Day gifts. Then we will move on to add surprising flavor to Independence Day. Denim will suddenly be joined by snakeskin, Sea-of-Cortez gemstones and plenty of Southwestern silver.

And just when you thought you had seen it all when it comes to Easter eggs and bunnies, a whole new crop of ingenious looks will make 2013 Spring décor look breathtakingly fresh.

We’re still a couple of weeks away from finalizing the color palettes and details for all nine trends, but as soon as they are ready, Members of our subscriber family will be the first to know. And, as always, we’ll have special pre-order pricing for our most-important customers! Make sure trendcurve.com is in your email contacts so you get our special offers.

As we constantly scan for innovations in materials, approaches and products which are clients can use for inspiration or incorporation in to their own creations, Philips is one of the companies we watch closely.

Philips just announced that it will partner with Kvadrat Soft Cells, to bring an, …”innovative luminous textile to the market. This partnership, which combines Philips’ leadership in ambient lighting with Kvadrat Soft Cells’ expertise in controlling sound absorption, means interior spaces can now be enhanced through both light and texture. With Philips’ addressable LEDs integrated into the Kvadrat Soft Cells acoustic panels, this is the first solution of its kind, and gives architects, interior designers and lighting specialists freedom to further enhance a space with ambient light.“

(click image for larger view)

In their lighting and other consumer groups, Philips focuses on and, as they state clearly in their press release for this new innovation and partnership, that they, “…understand(s) the pivotal role that lighting plays in creating a desired atmosphere and has developed a wide range of solutions that can be tailored to reflect an ever-changing palette of ambiances for any given moment.“

Like us, you should watch the marketplace for smart textiles, new approaches and partnerships like this one, and constantly ask yourself what it means for the market and for you…and how you can capitalize upon or leverage innovations like this one.

From crowdsourced designs being utilized by a company like Threadless.com (background) to 3D printing for advanced and rapid prototyping, organizations around the world are leveraging the connected innovation we all have access to with a computer and an internetwork that are sending our thoughts, ideas, designs, photos, videos and more around the globe at the speed of electrons.

This is one reason why we were so pleased to see a White House initiative to launch the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) and realize that this will benefit all of our clients and customers as innovations in design thinking, production methodologies and models are created and made widely available. According to the White House announcement, “Investing in technologies, such as information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology, will support the creation of good jobs by helping U.S. manufacturers reduce costs, improve quality, and accelerate product development. The President’s plan, which leverages existing programs and proposals, will invest more than $500 million to jumpstart this effort. The President believes that even as we live within our means, we must invest to win the future.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency car is a combat support vehicle for the Department of Defense, constructed by Local Motors from Arizona. (Photo by DARPA)

The White House blog had this post in advance of the President’s speech at Carnegie Mellon last Friday with this photo of an Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (known as “DARPA”) project which leveraged connected innovation to accelerate innovation with defense needs:

“The look of that vehicle isn’t the only cool thing about it: it’s also the product of a new approach to manufacturing, which has the potential to reduce the overall process by a factor a five. Rather than the usual contracting model that takes several years, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (known as “DARPA”) asked a small company in Arizona, Local Motors, to fulfill the challenge in a little over four months. With only four weeks for planning, Local Motors democratized the process by receiving 162 high quality designs from hundreds of entrepeneurs and spent fourteen weeks building the car. The efficiency of the DARPA challenge reveals the potential impact of crowd-sourcing and small businesses on advanced manufacturing at the Department of Defense.”

We’re seeing this “mass collaboration” trend accelerate and there is yet another new book on the subject from prolific author and speaker Don Tapscott called “Macrowikinomics“.  Though panned by some as too timid in wrestling with the big issues of companies and governments trying to control connectedness (and therefore innovation) on the internet, I would argue that Tapscott achieved his goal: to get people to think about what it means to business when people and systems are connected and how that is accelerating design and manufacturing…and much more.

To learn more:

• Macrowikinomics blog
• Global Trends 2025 and Ernst & Young’s Six Global Trends Shaping the Business World
• Open Innovation’s List of Examples
• Harvard Business School post, Crowd-sourced innovation gets a “Kickstart”

One materials trend that has been written up in scientific journals for some time—and for which two physicists received the Nobel Prize in 2010 for their ground-breaking experiments—is graphene. This one-atom-thick, carbon-based lattice is pretty small: 3 million sheets of it would only be 3 millimeters thick!

There are two properties of this material that are making manufacturers, designers and visionaries sit up and take notice though: Graphene has a breaking strength that is 200 times greater than steel and its electronic properties mean that it holds the promise of revolutionizing the manufacturing of electronics, computers, solar cells and anything that could potentially take advantage of these (and many other) sorts of properties.

The problem right now is we haven’t seen a breakthrough invention utilizing graphene. But one of the Nobel Prize in Physics winners, Dr Andre Geim, had this to say about what many are touting as a “miracle material”:  ”Graphene does not just have one application. It is not even one material. It is a huge range of materials. A good comparison would be to how plastics are used.”

We’ve read discussions about possible applications for home furnishings such as: wallpaper with embedded LEDs; lamps with their entire structure able to be lit; fabrics that conduct signal for pillows that also function as speakers; wall-sized displays (for photos, video, etc.); wall-board which would be plugged in so walls could “change color” by rotating a dial; and more.

Like any material not yet leveraged for a specific application, it is challenging to figure out if any of those sorts of applications are even possible, and which ones are a fool’s errand. That said, the mainstream media is beginning to write excitedly about the potential for graphene and it would be worth your time and attention to understand and learn more about it. We are.

Learn More

• BBC: “Is graphene a miracle material?“
• NatureNews: “European Researchers Chase Billion Euro Prize” (Graphene is one of the technologies competing)
• ScienceDaily: “Graphene’s Versatility Promises New Applications“