If you are a product-development specialist, retail buyer, packaging designer or a visual-display professional, reading the next few paragraphs could very well save you hours and hours of time! After 30 years in the décor forecast business, The Trend Curve has its own proven approach to both … [Read more...]
Considering the 2017 Color of the Year
It's only fitting that when Pantone names its color of the year, color-and-trend experts like Michelle Lamb, Editorial Director of The Trend Curve™ will be asked to weigh in on it. After 30 years of forecasting colors for everyone from paint companies and floral arrangers to greeting-card … [Read more...]
More Earnings in Your Halloween Goody Bag!
The Trend Curve has always believed in the potential of Halloween. Now we have even more reason to get behind it—and so do you. According to the newest findings of the National Retail Federation, Halloween Spending is expected to reach $8.4 in 2016. This represents 12% year-over-year growth, … [Read more...]
Creeping Up On You!
They creep up on us. Silently, insidiously sucking the nitrogen out of our air. Sound like a prelude to a Halloween horror tale? If only! It’s actually what’s happening over much of the Earth right now, as global climate change enables vines to thrive like never before and smother native forests. … [Read more...]
The Trend Curve Has A New Home!
After 11 years, The Trend Curve has moved to a new home! Please update your records to reflect our new address: Marketing Directions, Inc. The Trend Curve P.O. Box 44475 Eden Prairie, MN 55344 Our phone numbers remain unchanged (952.893.1245 and 800.531.6614 for voice; 952.893.1264 for fax). … [Read more...]
How About Some ‘Good’ Economic News?
Want some good economic news? Consumers and households are coming back and fast, according to the charts displayed in this article at Business Insider. For we in the home furnishings industry there are three that stuck out in the article: Housing starts are accelerating Homebuilder stocks are … [Read more...]
McKinsey: Cities and the rise of the consuming class
Gaining insight is one of the most important things you can do when identifying trends, especially now that the trend is toward an accelerating, global economic shift toward Asia. It's one of the reasons why we stay close to what is delivered by McKinsey & Company, a firm founded in 1926 that … [Read more...]
Homebuilder Confidence at Five Year High
How about some good news for those of us in the home furnishings industry? Homebuilder confidence rose one point in June, a five year high, according to a news release from the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB). Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes … [Read more...]
Our Site Was Hit With Malware
Last Thursday Google sent us an email that our site had been classified as having "malware" on it. If you tried to visit us you undoubtedly experienced a Malware Warning in your web browser and thought, "I'm not going there." I wouldn't either and we shut it down immediately. Springing in to action … [Read more...]
The Trend Curve Gets Ink from Minneapolis to China
I was so pleased when yesterday’s mail arrived with an envelope from a colleague who had just traveled to China two weeks ago. She sent me a copy of Cathay Pacific’s in-flight magazine called Discovery. She marked page 94 in this October issue, which begins an interview I gave to one of their … [Read more...]