Tile Africa: 5 easy ways to embrace the 2021 Pantone Colours of the Year in your home with Tile Africa

The 2021 Pantone Colour of the Year is two colours! Pantone’s Ultimate Gray and Illuminating are a combination of a durable and reassuring grey paired with an optimistic sunshine yellow. Tile Africa share their top 5 ideas on how to embrace these two shades in your home, individually or together, for a personal interpretation of the trend.

Creating a foundation for your room

Pantone’s Ultimate Gray is described as a solid and dependable colour, giving a firm foundation that resonates with resilience. Whilst Ultimate Gray is inspired by the weathered tones of nature, there are also the beautiful grey tones of driftwood, charcoal and cement to consider.

Bring this reliable shade into your home with your tiles, as a foundation upon which you can place your personal stamp and highlight your choice of colours within the design of your space. Blend the dependable Pantone Ultimate Gray with biophilic design by using a wood-look tile to mimic the charm of weathered wood or the darker tones of a granite inspired stone-look tile. Alternatively,  the classic reassurance of a grey-veined marble-look tile is a tried and tested formula for creating an elegant look when renovating your home.

Make a statement with grey

Grey, in its wide range of tones, is easily brought to the fore with soft furnishings such as towels, bathmats, throws and other soft furnishings. You can also embrace grey in your home by bringing grey plant pots, greyscale prints in black, white, or metallic frames, as well as the cool timeless appeal of black and white photographs into your décor. These can add to the existing greys within your home to revive the chic appeal of a monochromatic palette.

Illuminate your space

Adding elements of bright colour to your existing décor, is a wonderful way to embrace the latest colour trend and refresh your space. With the timeless background of a black and white bathroom, the warmth of yellow towels, inspired by Pantone’s Illuminating, is a cheerful addition to the room. Using coloured pots is another easy, and affordable way to bring some sunshine into the space. If you have encaustic patterned tiles, look for complementary shapes to create a cohesive whole and a modern interpretation of a time-honoured pattern.

Highlight your style

Illuminating is a wonderful colour to highlight the natural accents and colours of a traditional polished cement-look tile, bringing a feel of happy optimism into the space. It also compliments last year’s Classic Blue to perfection, refreshing the look and adding energy to the space.

Let it shine

If your existing colour palette doesn’t lend itself to greys and yellow isn’t within your colour wheel, look to alternate shades of yellow to embrace this colour trend. For a softer, more nostalgic take on Pantone’s Illuminating, include the soft yellow sheen of brass in your space. This is both a nod to the 2021 colour of the year and to the rise of metallics and different colour finishes within tap ranges and bathroomware particularly. For a fun and inexpensive take on the colour trend, place lemons into a bowl for an instant pick-me-up, inspired by the solar radiance of Illuminating.

Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute says, that “the union of an enduring Ultimate Gray with the vibrant yellow Illuminating expresses a message of positivity supported by fortitude….this is a colour combination that gives us resilience and hope.”

We hope that these ideas from Tile Africa of how to embrace both shades in your home, bring you a sense of strength and hope into your home. How ever you may feel about trends, the feeling of being in a space that you love and where you are safe and happy, is the most important goal not only for this year, but every year.

For more ideas on how to embrace the latest trends in your home, visit www.tileafrica.co.za or visit your nearest store.