Color trends come and go, season after season and year after year. Sometimes it seems as if they show up without warning and are quite suddenly everywhere - in every product category (clothes, furniture, cars, even computers!) - as if every individual in the design world privately joined forces to release the same hues during the same season.

And while there are some groups like that in existence, they are never and have never been the creator of color trends. Color trends are determined by our collective identities. In that regard, they are in fact never without warning, because true trends (as opposed to fads, for example) are born out of a whole web of interconnected elements that shape our culture and inform our subconscious needs, wants, and buying patterns.

But where does such a web begin? Where is the origin of a trending color or palette of colors, and how does it become relevant? Color trends are in fact an outcome; a product of timing, events, and moods.