Münster

Color and Design

Social and technological developments are constantly changing the way our world looks. Our living conditions and habits change and along with them, the products that surround us. Every change is reflected in materials and surfaces, as well as in the colors used for products. In order for a product such as a car to be perceived as current, attractive and true to its brand, OEM colors need to reflect the zeitgeist, even though they already have to be designed and determined several years in advance.

Our designers in the United States, Japan, China and Germany tackle these changes very early on and translate them into colors. Based on their research, a new color collection for the automotive industry is published each year with global and regional color trends. For BASF's annual Automotive Color Trends, our design team in Münster develops colors for the European market.

Automotive Color Trends 2021-2022

Designers for BASF’s Coatings division have delved into new color spaces for the 2021-2022 Automotive Color Trends collection. Borrowing a phenomenon from quantum mechanics, this year’s collection is called SUPERPOSITION, which is a state where the limitation of binary systems is overcome.

In other words, things aren’t just black or white, heads or tails, one or zero. The world has an uncountable number of variations, and this collection immerses itself in those variations. The colors benefit from an unlimited vocabulary of design, which can be playful and serious, comfortable and disturbing, or clear and chaotic all at the same time.

Our Design Team in Münster

Katja Pauli, Florina Trost, Mark Gutjahr

Michaela Finkenzeller, Astrid van der Auwera