creating trend boards PART 1: WHAT IS A TREND BOARD?

We could define a trend board as a "visual speech".

Trend boards are inspiration boards that provide an aesthetic display of upcoming colors, themes,shapes, materials, textures, silhouettes and moods.  Their primary objective is to provide informations to clients in a simple, visually appealing manner.  

Visual elements can communicate a great amount of information very quickly, that's why trend boards are so common whitin different design fields such as interior decoration, product design and so on. 

Trend boards provide inspiration and creative direction.  They can set a mood for a clothing designer as he creates a new collection or help a buyer as she prepares to stock shelves for a new season.  Magazines use trend boards to provide ideas about editorial content and layout, while trend forecasting companies often use trend boards internally to show some work in progress whithin collegues, or externally as a presentation tool to supplement text-based informations.  

Trend boards can be in either physical or digital form.  In both cases trend boards look like collages, when in physical form,they usually include actual fabric swatches and trimmings, which add a three-dimensional quality.  

 Digital trend boards have the advantage of digital imaging softwares such as Photoshop, which can augment the collage-making process or give creators more control over images and color.

You can get the best results when you use both methods: digital to get that super sharp, crispy, perfect layout, and phisical, to add some threedimensionalism and a  strong visual rithm otherwise missing on the flat board.

 

Before starting a trend board, trend forecasters first conduct research of contemporary trends. As you probably saw while I was talking, I made a huge research based on parametric architecture, wich I think is really intersting. But sources of inspiration include society itself, industry leaders, designers, artists, photographers, trade shows, fashion shows, art exhibitions, retail observation, street fashion, individual interviews, magazines, trade publications, books, and online research, including social events, political changes, enviroment issues and so on, deeper and deeper in what looks sometimes like an antropological research more than a fashion research.

After conducting researches and identifying major patterns and trends, trend forecasters then collect a series of images and sometimes words that represent these overreaching developments.  Images and elements include silhouettes, product images, color swatches, photographs, paintings, and sketches.  The final collection of images and elements is edited and then arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner on the board. Finished trend boards typically depict one trend or complimenting sets of trends.  For different aesthetic movements or conflicting trends, separate trend boards are created.