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The Wednesday Journal of Cultural Insights.
I’ve wanted to share our trend book with you for a while and do this before everybody gets a well-deserved vacation (you can join in today in a giveaway; see below). Let’s peek into a work that took us 11 months to finish; the result is everything we hoped for, and we are excited to show a few insights.
How make trends easy to understand, actionable with concrete material proposals
and fuel you with inspiration ?
How did this project come together? Neolith approached us to create a (printed) book on Macro Trends. The Spanish company operates in the field of sintered stone and works with architects and interior designers across the globe.
For this particular commission and together with Enric Pastor, we looked into Urbanization, Well-Being, and Nature/Sustainability, Macro Trends we specialize in, and each chapter includes
You will find 345 pages – packed with inspiration, resources, and education, the three core principles at Eclectic Trends.
The book Inspired Living For Tomorrow 2024/25 was commissioned as a marketing project for Neolith and is unavailable for sale; it’s a tool and gift for wholesalers, showrooms, architects, and designers. It has been translated into several languages already, thanks to the feedback Neolith received from its market. But you have the chance to receive a copy; we share below how to join the draw.
Let us show you a few snippets of the content:
The rise of mega cities has conditioned our lifestyle. The world’s population is expected to reach 9.8 billion inhabitants by 2050, with 70% of them (6.7 billion) living in urban areas. This density is influencing how homes are designed. Space is becoming ever more valuable in the new metropolises. Thus, micro-living has arisen as a flexible and ingenious home concept that not only gets the most out of the sqm available; it integrates shared spaces and services such as laundry rooms and rooftops to facilitate human interaction. The Era of Co remains and lives new waves of innovation, becoming smarter, greener, inclusive, connected, and healthy.
The Tree Path is an elevated cyclist route that runs between trees supported on two parallel rows of bushes that act as pillars. Situated in the Italian countryside, this road project ends in Sabbioneta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and explores sustainable mobility by mixing natural and artificial elements.
Each Macro Trend includes exclusive artwork created with different techniques. Based on the trends mentioned in this chapter, artist Rafafans has imagined interiors of subtle complexity that are flexible, modular, and integrated with nature to arouse pleasure in thinking about what it would like to live in them. The colors, textures, and shapes speak of spaces full of the lovely nuances found in our everyday lives, which come together perfectly, sometimes going unnoticed. Yet they find their place and importance in these inspiring compositions.
How it makes me feel is a question consumers will often ask themselves once they acquire a product or service, right before making a purchase decision, or when they enjoy a particular space. This space can be your home, a hotel, a restaurant, the airport, or your dentist’s facilities. Wellness brands cover physical, mental, and social characteristics, and beyond offering products or services, they need to demonstrate a purpose. Users’ decisions are now often based on emotions, and helping them with their wellness and balance is an excellent opportunity to create real value. We show several perspectives in the book on what Well-being means now.
Photographs that stimulate the senses, that hug and comfort. Materials and textures, conceptual poetry, light as a language, and unexpected compositions have all been critical to the work of stylist Ángela Esteban Librero and photographer Daniel Jordán Pompa.
The color palette evokes a soft and holistic attitude (physical, emotional, environmental) all new spaces must now embrace, ranging from neutrals to a soft embracing primrose and spiritual hues such as Lavender Fog, blues for serenity up to caring and cocooning browns.
Mother Pearl prepares artisan-made pearl milk tea with brand values that transmit pleasure, nutrition, and exquisiteness. As you drink this beverage, the flavor-loaded tapioca pearls produce a gratifying state of satisfaction. Pioneering creating of healthy tea houses in Hong Kong, Mother Pearl commissioned the studio A Work of Substance to transfer the pleasurable experience of drinking bubble tea to this space. From the pearl-shaped cloud of lamps floating high above to the dark olive green and natural clay brick façade, everything breathes a commitment to health and sustainability in 32 m2, attracting consumers to the sweetness of the tea.
Societal awareness is growing every day with a strong feeling of respect for the environment in which we live. However, we are still far from achieving a natural balance on the planet. Researching healthier materials, habits, and production processes are under the spotlight.
Although attitudes vary depending on the age range, country, and sector, there is good news: 85% of all consumers have become “greener” in their consumption habits over the last few years. Sustainability is an important buying criterion for 60% of them. 49% are purchasing fewer physical items because they don’t need them. We know this is not enough; greenwashing becomes a minefield; still, the projects we share hopefully give hope for new opportunities.
Naifactory has developed a new material from olive pits to create small objects and furniture following sustainability criteria.
Two eco-friendly minds and a few olive pits led architect Joseán Vilar (Birmingham, Alabama, 1973) and designer Silvana Catazine (Olinda, Brazil, 1974) to head into the laboratory—pure serendipity. “Silvana was doing a course on circular materials at Elisava, and her professor, Robert Thompson, asked each student to find some waste they could use to create a new material. She was eating at a restaurant, and upon finishing her salad, the pits on her plate caught her attention,” says Vilar. She put them in a napkin and took them to the laboratory to experiment with them for weeks until she came up with one of the first samples of Reolivar, her biomaterial made of this waste.
Part of the new generation of artists conquering the digital world, young Valencian designer Jesús Mascaraque composes minimalist scenarios to become digitally submerged. He’s reflected the Natural Balance trend in this esthetic world with an imaginative and organic perspective of an at-home work/play space with a blanket of wildflowers representing how our ideas can spring from nature. Cozy curves with Neolith surfaces are included, which can be seen on the right side.
The book Inspiring Living for Tomorrow, Lifestyle Trends 2024/25 was created through observing and researching currents in all creative areas: interior decorating, design, architecture, art, fashion, technology, gastronomy, and lifestyle, with a particular focus on sustainability and experiencing spaces that reflect the needs and values of an ever-shifting society.
We wish you much luck!
PD: I shared in our newsletter today (exclusive content) three learnings I got from producing a trend book for the first time. Please come over to the Wednesday Journal if you want to learn more about this experience.
CREDITS:
Client: Neolith
Trend research (includes bringing six trend concepts together, negotiating copyrights, creating individual chapters but also bringing the entire book into a coherent package), color palettes, co-art direction: Eclectic Trends
Text, interviews, coordination of exclusive artwork with all creatives: Enric Pastor
Graphic Design: Bea Barrena
Creatives who contributed with an exclusive translation of each Macro Trend: Rafafans for Urbanization, Angela Esteban Librero, Daniel Jordán Pompa for Well-being, Jesús Mascaraque for Nature/Sustainability
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