RAL Color Feeling 2028+ Color Trend Report

RAL has released its new color trend report, *RAL Color Feeling 2028+*. Consisting of 15 trend colors, the color palette serves as a guide for industry partners who incorporate these trend colors into their products.

How can we create meaningful design in an age when artificial intelligence can generate countless designs and design possibilities in a matter of seconds? With “Read + Respond,” the RAL Color Feeling 2028+ focuses on the conscious perception, understanding, and creation of design, and examines how color interacts with its context.

“New technologies such as artificial intelligence are vastly expanding the possibilities of design. This makes it all the more important to be able to filter out what is relevant from this diversity and make informed decisions. In the future, design expertise will be demonstrated less by producing as many answers as possible and more by asking the right questions,” explains Markus Frentrop, Head of RAL Colors. The guiding principle “Read + Respond” describes this fundamental process: “Read” stands for carefully observing and understanding a situation. “Respond” refers to the careful and creative design response to it.

In an age when digital tools are generating images, designs, and concepts at an ever-increasing pace, the ability to recognize and contextualize connections—and to derive conscious design responses from them—is becoming increasingly important. “Read + Respond” views design as a process of understanding. The focus is not on the multitude of possibilities, but on the ability to recognize connections and make deliberate decisions.

RAL Color Feeling 2028+ explores the relationship between color, place, and global color trends. The focus is on the chromatic value of a hue and the color experience that arises when color is perceived in interaction with space, material, light, and use.

For the RAL Color Feeling 2028+, 15 shades were selected based on social, cultural, and design developments, as well as an analysis of international visual and design trends. When combined, they form various color constellations that can be perceived and interpreted differently depending on the material, environment, and application. Rather than dictating a specific style, the selection invites users to explore context, interpretation, and creative freedom. The selected shades are drawn from the RAL Design System plus. With 1,825 standardized shades, the color system enables a project-specific expansion of the color selection and supports international color communication.

The color combinations identified most frequently in the research can be assigned to five fundamental design themes: Focus, Emotion, Relaxation, Communication, and Play. They showcase different color profiles and provide guidance for context- and use-specific design decisions. RAL Color Feeling 2028+ deliberately takes a long-term approach. The goal is not to define a rigid color set, but rather to develop a contemporary and forward-looking color profile that offers design guidance and allows for individual interpretations.

The RAL Trendbox is published to complement the trend report. It contains 75 material samples in the categories of paint, metal, plastic, carpet, and textiles. The collection allows users to directly experience the selected shades on different surfaces and illustrates how their effect changes when combined with various materials.

Additional background information on the trend report, inspiration, guidance, and professional design tools are available on the RAL Colors website. The RAL Trendbox 2028+ is now available through the RAL online store and at select specialty retailers. (OM-10/26)