Stora Trenddagen 2021 in a pandemic setting. Despite lockdowns and obstacles all this was a huge success. And here is the story of the trend day 2021.
I have been working professionally with trends since around the turn of the millenium, so around year 2000. In 2011 I decided to take my trend reports and make them as a more public event. Early in the season I take the stage and talk about where we are and where we are heading.
2020 turned out to be a very different kind of year. Especially from a trend hunter perspective. Pandemic, lockdown and no fairs. Normally I say that my trendreports are based on statistics, interviews, put in a historical context – and finally my observations from the 20+ fairs and cities I go to every year. So I was basically missing one legs I stand on.
Instead I started working with colour experts at NCS Colour. They are also doing trendreports, but a bit more focused on the colours. So we started talking and finally in about August, September we decided to go full force into this. We would bounce ideas, trends, colour etc with eachother all the way until the presentation on February 2nd. Not necessarily arguing but tweaking ideas and reasoning. My job is to get an overview and behaviour and the would put colours on this.
During fall 2020 we were still planning for a physical event. Regulations were changing back and forth. Should we focus on purely a digital event or a combination?
Parallell to planning for the execution of the event we worked with everything else. Like pictures. Photographer Emil Fagander helped. I basically wanted to experiment with edible colours and afternoon shadows in the picture. Garlic, no garlic? Bread, no bread? Just crumbs? Coloured vintage plates – but what colour?
Eventually we got an official picture I am pretty happy with. I love the colour combination, the relaxed feeling – and the presence of actual people. I am so tired of perfect pictures without people. Still life can be very cold and boring. More people, please.
The same colours occured also in the short video stories I did as a running up to the event. We talked about how colours work and where we are. My partner in crime from NCS is Kennet Vrågård.
The closer we came to the end of 2020, the more we realised that we couldn’t make a physical event. Only digital. But we wanted to make a digital event that was new and innovative. After many months of Zoom and Teams we wanted our trend presentation to stand out. So we focused a lot on a fun send out. People who signed up to Stora Trenddagen got a colour chart, stickers and a set of postcards with summary of the trends and some inspiring graphic design done by Straight Design.
Even the letter and envelope was in the same graphical manner. And with the colours of 2022 constantly present.
Since we did all this digitally we decided to go internationally. I started cooperation with a handful of agencies that sold tickets and promoted the trend talk. Like here with Italianbark.
And it was really amazing. Close to 100 tickets were booked for people from over 27 countries. In total we booked 750 tickets, including our Swedes. As always the crowd is a mix of design companies, designers, media, ad agencies and just curious people. H&M, IKEA as well as many, many other companies were listening.
So the presentation was recorded. We did two sets of 90 minute each. One in Swedish and one in English.
It was so nice to see social media be filled with images like this. People sitting with their kits and getting involved. Or simply just relaxing. Pictures from @are_inredning_design and @onlyeljen
We did a live event in conjunction to the presentation. A classical Q&A session. 280 people attended and the most common question was “how should I implement the fourth trend in a room?”. The quick answer is: in a shop, window display, exhibition or as a styled photoshoot.
A great day. And some of the testimonials prove it too.
“What an amazing seminar. I enjoyed it with wine and cheese.” – Anna E., journalist
“Awesome as usual. Very uplifting and inspiring.” – Lisa B., designer
“Damn what a nice tv production.” – Karin S., trend researcher
“I love Stora Trenddagen. So much inspiration.” – Anna, kitchen producer
“Amazing trend seminar.” – Elin L., stylist
“Thanks for a great seminar. I was sitting and taking notes all the presentation. Love the activism and relaxation…” – Louise , designer
“Love the casual trend presentation. Far from stiff upper lip seminars we usually see.” – Johan S., design producer
“I loved the seminar. I got very inspired by the colour section.” – Susanna B., trend researcher
“I really enjoyed the presentation and I am going to quote you a lot…” – Malla T, editor
And that’s it. One year until next time. Or is it…? We will see… You will be able to get at ticket and see Stora Trenddagen afterwards. You can either get it at NCS Colour or at Italianbark.
And there are talks about doing a summer presentation. We’ll see…
great, thanks!