June’s free webinars are about changing trends in these facets of design. By Dianne M. Pogoda

Coco Chanel said many wise things, especially about style and fashion, including, “The best color in the whole world is the one that looks good on you,” and that “Fashion changes, but style endures.”

June’s five free webinars, generously sponsored by Amerock, explores color and style trends in kitchen, bath and interior design, and how they influence our environments.

Each month, NKBA offers free 60-minute webinars, each of which features a presentation by an expert in the specific subject matter, delivered via a virtual platform. The sessions offer certified participants 0.1 CEU per event — it’s an easy way for designers to collect the CEUs needed to maintain NKBA certification. Participants must engage in 80 percent of the live sessions to receive CEU credit; registration closes two hours prior to start times. All webinars begin at 12 noon, Eastern Time. Create an account at the NKBA store at www.nkba.org to register.

As a special accommodation for the COVID-19 pandemic, NKBA is accepting views of recorded webinars to qualify for CEUs for the duration of the current cycle, which ends June 30.

This month’s series starts on June 3, as Judd Lord, senior director of industrial design for Delta Faucet, presents “Connecting the Dots: Design and Trend Directional Overview.”

The rising Millennial generation is becoming more influential in terms of design trends, and this webinar will recent approaches, technologies and attitudes that are changing today’s design process. From a desire to have their senses engaged, their predilection for products and spaces with a sense of grounding and history, or their desire for interior spaces to relate to exterior elevations, this new generation is influencing design on multiple levels. This session will help identify these new influences and approaches to design as well as the main drivers within the Millennial generation. Lord will also discuss how to specify for Millennial home evaluation preferences and their impact on interior trends. To register for this webinar, click here.

Next, “Step Up Your Appliance Game with Color,” on June 11 with Rachel Moriarty, principal designer at Rachel Moriarty Interiors in San Diego.

“We started tip-toeing into the idea of using color in our kitchens when KitchenAid mixers showed up on the scene,” says Moriarty. “Now, we have the option to go much bigger, that there is an abundance of color selections available to us in the appliance arena.”

This webinar will cover trending colors for 2020, how to ease into color and how to stand out using color in your kitchen design projects. Attendees will learn to identify ways to stand out with color appliances in the sea of gray and white, and how to create an epic focal point and create contrast with color and appliances.

To register for this webinar, click here.

On June 16, join Richard Landon, CMKBD, owner of Richard Landon Design in Bellevue, Wash., as he gets in touch with nature for Part 2 of his discussion, “Fractalize Your Designs: How Nature Reveals What Feels Right.”

(Part 1 is available online at Fractalize Your Designs.)

The things people most enjoy about nature can wield a powerful influence on design. In Part 2 of this webinar, Landon will talk about how nature reveals four key techniques for design that just “feels right.” This often means that design solutions satisfy clients’ expectations in completely different ways, so attendees will learn bold strokes to prepare homeowners for the unexpected and unfamiliar, five “rules” to successfully navigate the design process, and how to contrast “wish lists” with “most matters” design.

To register for this session, click here.

Paula Kennedy, CMKBD, CLIPP, and owner of Timeless Kitchen Design in Seattle, steps in next on June 25 with “Color Cues – Color’s Influence in Our Lives.” Most designers have a fairly good understanding of hues, tints, shades and complementary or tertiary color palettes, along with what the current “color of the year.” Kennedy, who is also a Certified Architectural Color Consultant (CACC) and an NKBA Color Badge Subject Matter Expert, goes beyond Color 101 and explores color’s influence on nearly everything in life.

The presentation will show how to use color to support a sense of well-being and joy in personal environments. She’ll illustrate the use of color in commercial, product, fashion and digital marketing and explain how color influences decisions, feelings and choices, and now that translates into the homes. Additionally, she’ll the use of architectural color and paint products, how to use color to create illusions of height and space, how to minimize or amplify architectural details, create an intimacy in a space, how the use of color can aid and wellness design, and more.

To register for this webinar, click here.

Finally, on June 30, Peter Wells, senior principal designer of insights and product design at this month’s sponsor, Amerock, will talk about “Decorative Hardware: How It’s Been Influenced by Architectural Eras and Styles.” Even though the decorative hardware selection usually comes early in the design process, it’s the finishing touch that adds polish and a certain special element to a space. But with so many options, finding the right product to enhance the overall design can be daunting and time-consuming. With “open concept living spaces,” being the buzzword of design today, the kitchen is now more aligned with the overall style of the home, and thus cabinet hardware needs to coordinate with lighting and home accessories.

Wells will walk attendees through the journey of how historical eras and architectural styles have influenced decorative hardware to provide context surrounding hardware styles. Using this information, designers may make meaningful and informed selections based on more than simply aesthetics. This webinar also shows how to quickly identify architectural themes in cabinet hardware and popular pairings of trending home elevations and cabinet hardware styles.

To register for this webinar, click here.