AkzoNobel Wood Coatings Brings Lightness with Soulful Sage

The soft, silvery green, Soulful Sage brings a gentle lift to any space, making it feel lighter, calmer and more inviting. Sitting at the heart of three carefully curated color stories, Soulful Sage perfectly captures the mood for 2027, according to the results of the company’s extensive annual trend research.

Photo: AkzoNobel

“Our 2027 Color of the Year is all about creating lighter spaces for a lighter life,” explained Heleen van Gent, Creative Director of AkzoNobel’s Global Aesthetic Center. “Many people are feeling weighed down by world events and overloaded with information. We want to offer a way to create lighter environment so people can feel that weight lifted off their shoulders.”

For manufacturers, Soulful Sage™ offers a versatile starting point for new product and finish development. The supporting color stories – Glow, Light, and Lift – provide additional routes for building coordinated palettes across furniture, cabinetry, flooring, windows, doors, siding, cladding and other wood products. 

Glow is focused on earth tones to create a warm look. Light combines quiet, pale tones and darker shades for a healing mood, while Lift features positive tones that evoke the joy of an inspiring space. 

Together, these three stories provide a trend-led color palette to create distinctive combinations for their customers.

The 2027 colors and finishes can stand alone or be combined with others in the collection, giving manufacturers flexibility to create coordinated looks across a product range. They also work well alongside wood substrates with natural or stained finishes, allowing manufacturers to bring colored surfaces together with the warmth and character of wood in the same product or collection.

Color development for industrial wood products is closely linked to the coating system, application method, sheen and opacity, which is why AkzoNobel Wood Coatings’ Technical Services and design experts are ready to support customers in achieving the right finish efficiently on their production lines. From color matching and coating-system selection to application guidance and finish development, they help customers move from a design to a practical, repeatable result.

“Manufacturers need to balance changing design expectations with the practical demands of production,” Henri Bijsterbosch, Color Product Marketing Manager for AkzoNobel’s Industrial Coatings business. “Soulful Sage and the three supporting color palettes give our OEM customers a clear creative direction, while our coatings expertise helps them develop finishes that can be applied consistently and integrated into their production processes.” 

AkzoNobel’s Global Aesthetic Center has been translating trends into desirable colors for many years. Its annual ColourFutures™ trend forecast meeting brings together in-house experts, international architects, designers and journalists to share insights into how our reactions to the world around us impact our color choices. 
 
For more information, visit the dedicated Color of the Year 2027 page here.