Our workWhy usPricing
Gather & Grow

Make Content Stand Out & Drive Growth

Watch the recording of our interactive session, where we explore how to make your content stand out and get buy-in from expert Devin Reed!
View event
Summit

Ignite Summit On-Demand Videos

Rewatch all of the sessions from the Ignite Summit hosted by Superside. Learn from creative experts from Webflow, Headspace, Paramount, Zapier, MasterControl, Reddit, Coursera, Articulate, Matterport, Clari, Mutiny, and Mitto!
View event
Gather & Grow

Your Opinion About Your Brand Doesn’t Matter

Watch our interactive session on how to position, build and experiment your way to a brand that resonates with your audience!
View event
Events & Summits

Explore all the content inside Events & Summits!

See all
BlogBook a demoSign in

The 6 Hottest Color Trends for 2023

David Wilson
David Wilson8 min read
Color Theory Part 3: Color Use in 2023 - Superside

Learn the basics of color theory in part one of our series on color theory, What is Color Theory, and How Do You Use It?.

Learn how to use color schemes in part two, A Guide to Schemes & Combinations.

There’s something remarkable about how an item’s color shapes our opinion of the item. A little green on the packaging of a fancy grain leaves the impression of general healthiness, a yellow box of frozen fries says “live a little”. A blue ad for security software speaks trust, while a black ad for a high-end credit card boasts exclusivity.

The world’s best designers are in a perpetual dance with color, and they’re learning new moves all the time. Decades can be marked by the color tendencies of their media, and it’s the restlessness of the world’s doodlers that keeps such changes coming.

While we can’t know what shades and hues will color the decades to come, some accelerating trends and designerly intuition have allowed us to compile a list of likely color use in 2023. For added context, we’ve included a list of popular color use in decades past as well.

What You’ll Learn

Popular Color Use in 2023

Color Use by Decade

Examples of Color Theory in Action

Trends with Color in 2023

Popular Color Use in 2023

Here are the color trends we’ll likely be seeing more of in 2023.

Earthy Tones

4f2abd4d2ad9c6373169146c17790b78a33c95c1

After a few years indoors and screen-bound, it’s not surprising that we’re happy to plant our faces in some dirt (“touch grass”, as it were). 2023 should see a return to the earthy tones of years past.

Kitsch

3e5a49f95acd32ed2862b6768b8a670be102beca

Kitsch gets a bad rep, but clearly not bad enough: The combination of cheerful blues, pinks and yellows has taken on a millennial spin, and, if we’re being frank, it’s pretty cute.

Viva Magenta

222f1579799e10ccfbdcf94b0af2b30fe1eb26a1

Pantone, the residing gods of color, have chosen this reddened shade as their Color of the Year for 2023. In their own words: “...brave and fearless, a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative.” We’re curious to see where Viva Magenta takes us.

Sci-Fi

68858be5c1d8ecdf9bc47923ab024a873f1b65ab

Sci-Fi imagery and colors have a place in every nerd’s heart, and most designers are nerds. We’d love to say “sci-fi is coming back, big”, but in truth, it never completely leaves. The big change this time around is a darkening—a grittiness that looks like Tron as directed by Christopher Nolan.

Acidic

e7c5fa5a67efc7e04e95305748645ec20ffc2082

Remember Sour Skittles? Remember how you couldn’t stop eating them, even when they physically scraped your palate sore? The visual equivalent of that is acid graphics: an insistence on the most blinding combinations imaginable, but executed in a manner that makes it hard to look away. The pain is part of the rush.

Mediterranean

127cb81834bb93b7aa8b0be93364e04e364cf2a8

Every color scheme has the capacity to remind you of a different (perhaps imaginary) world, but Mediterranean colors send your mind across oceans and lesser vacation destinations in a moment. The gentle browns and oranges offer a sense of relaxation that Westerners tend to associate with an evening in Tuscany. Maybe that’s to be expected after a two-year travel break.

Learn how to build high-impact design teams

Our guide features Creative Directors and Design Leaders who've overcome challenges, beat burnout and empowered their teams. Curious? We thought so.

Get the guide

Color Use by Decade

Time and place have a way of informing the color climate every passing year. We’ve set aside a few colorful decades for your examination below.

Pastels in the 50s

7f071b9e772cfff00cc5225ab4b7f69bde60d57f

The 50s were marked by chalky-looking pastels meant to convey joy (though it all looks a little repressed now). Coming out of a horrific war, it was the best we could do.

Popular colors: light pink, mint green, turquoise, pale yellow and blue.

Psychedelia & Mod Motifs in the 60s

04b15096d6fc1f55be2871e0e281f3ea4aa7690c

The radical changes taking place in the 60s emerged in the decade’s aesthetic, as well as amidst stoner-y music festivals and bell-bottom jeans.

Popular colors: light and mustard yellow, fuchsia and various pinks, orange tones, wood-like tones and neons.

Mostly Primary Colors in the 70s

0a27d565a991df85fb9534c8a53ca0edc3bd21c7

Colors started to “pop” around the 70s with the accessibility of color-screen technology. The primary colors whose hues had marked many previous decades were still in fashion, though.

Popular colors: Red, yellow and blue for primaries. Beige, rust, avocado, harvest gold, mustard yellow and earthy brown for others.

A Digital Rainbow in the 80s

e032741a21b833f63930e4b747d8221c77364290

When digital technology started becoming accessible to the middle class in the 80s, the “cool parent” would’ve succumbed to a flashy Panasonic ad wiggled in front of them before Christmas.

Popular colors: Neons, bright yellow, bright orange, light green and pink.

Noisy or Moody in the 90s

b86730e996546cb6eaee8c0f414ca919b7b11f93

For all our memories of flat-top haircuts and blinding neon tees, the 90s was a confusing time visually. The increasing accessibility of tech made advertisers want to flood the market with punctuating colors, but the rise of grunge and counterculture begged to differ: take those same colors and mute them. It's still not clear who won.

Popular colors: Either muted or vibrant versions of blue, green, orange, pink and yellow depending on the medium.

The Rainbow Continues in the 2000s

d28eb967c10809a71ecf53f37155638662883314

The 2000s could easily be categorized as “like the 90s, but less dreary”. Or, perhaps, “like the 90s, but with Nelly”. Grunge’s muted colors went away, and consumer goods companies cashed in big on teenage (and teenage-adjacent) markets by saturating them with bright colors.

Popular colors: Most colors in the rainbow, but amplified in ways we’d consider tacky (for now). Fun fact—Pantone named Cerulean Blue the “color of the millennium” in 2000.

Minimalism and The Dampened Rainbow in the 2010s

c005763016eaa565b84545cfc0f636c8dca1bcd4

We seem to have had enough of the garish palettes of our sibling decades in the 2010s. We kept our “rainbow” leanings, but moderated our use of brightness and contrast. We also tried doing more with less—in a visually overstimulating era, being clever with fewer colors helped distinguish you from the noise.

Popular colors: “Millennial pink” (or “rose gold”), bright green, various blues, light grey and deep reds.

Noticing a pattern?

Our color palette has expanded, and seems to be staying that way. There are many pet theories as to why, but the soundest suggest that the turn of digital technology—specifically the ability to produce color on screens in the late 70s—opened the proverbial floodgates for what we could depict in popular media.

Or maybe we all just got bored of our parents’ wood-paneled basements and mute blue carpeting.

Examples of Color Theory in Action

When color theory and color schemes are in the hands of skilled creators, beautiful work happens. These forward-thinking folks partnered with the color geniuses at Superside to take their brand to the next level.

Pink & red (and a bit of orange):

Imperfect Foods

9c4b64fd99676d79583670fd7a05236d57a81da2

Blue, green & white:

Salesforce

c97863b93aa2f4ae28847d56535399b4c8d7a39a

Yellow & pink:

Talent by Entelo

c3a0ed7492f5ed5ee583edc32a12c7f38d45b73e

Trends with Color in 2023

If you’ve been following parts one and two of our color theory series, you know the dire importance of putting your brand in the hands of those well-versed on the subject.

Knowing color theory’s tenets and trends isn’t enough on its own. It takes years of experience; of applying the rules, bending the rules and tactically breaking them to make a meaningful impact with your brand.

For many ambitious brands, making a splash with color means partnering with dedicated design teams. Most in-house design teams don’t have the capacity to take on the work that’s needed to scale businesses in the coming years—they’re inundated with marketing requests of their own.

Putting color in the hands of a high-performing design partner is a smart bet in 2023.

Beautiful design starts with Superside

The best design talent at your fingertips means your brand's true colors will get a chance to shine. Want to learn more?

Get started

Published: Jan 2, 2023
David Wilson
Written by
David Wilson

David is a Senior Content Marketing Specialist at Superside. A former journalist with bylines too numerous to enumerate, he brings his love of storytelling and semantics to the marketing world. Recognizing the sizable gaps in the creative-as-a-service (CaaS) sector, he jumped at the chance to fill the creative void for ambitious brands. In his off hours, he enjoys loud music, making vegan meals and being made fun of for making vegan meals. He’ll gladly talk to you about any of the above on LinkedIn.


Join our community of 15,000 strong and receive the best design and marketing content, biweekly

No charge. Unsubscribe anytime

Continue reading

Hassle-free design starts here

Superside is an always-on design company that makes design frictionless and hassle-free for marketing, sales, creative and product design teams. This means top-quality designs at lightning-fast speeds, improved velocity and go-to-market and completely secure and confidential file sharing and collaboration.

In this one-on-one live demo, you’ll see:
- How Superside works
- A first look at the Superside platform
- The most suitable subscription plan for you

Get ready to join 450+ scale-ups and enterprise teams doing good design at scale with Superside’s dedicated team model.
Ready to get started?Book a demo now

Book a call with us

Loading...
We need your phone number for the demo. We'll never use it for any other purposes.
Superside is a revolutionary way for businesses to get good design done at scale.Trusted by 450+ ambitious companies, Superside makes design hassle-free for marketing and creative teams. By combining the top 1% of creative talent from around the world with purpose-built technology and the rigor of design ops, Superside helps ambitious brands grow faster. Since inception, Superside has been a fully remote company, with more than 700 team members working across 57 countries and 13 timezones.
© 2023 Superside. All rights reserved.