In its new workbook, Barthelmess presents the visual merchandising trends for the first six months of 2013.

On 3 August, the visual design team at Barthelmess, the visual merchandising specialist, will present four central design trends for the spring and summer of 2013 in its new workbook. The trend forecast of the Barthelmess designers: it will be colourful, fun, playful, surprising and surreal. Mareike Wittko, visual merchandising designer at Barthelmess: "The emerging visual merchandising trends we have identified we are now calling "Seen", "Plus", "Mix" and "Smile". At first glance, "Seen" would seem to be clear, pure and cool. But this would be misleading because surreal elements and optical illusions very suddenly transport the observer to another world. Neon colours and neon light combined with black and reflective surfaces are applied. "Seen" creates the paradox of a clearly structured staging that envelops a magical-seeming atmosphere."

The "Plus" trend is something completely different. Here gaming is the central theme. The mood of these designs is shaped by joy of the game. Yet here too the staging has a clear structure. Scrabble and painting by numbers are games that follow a clear pattern. Ikat patterns bring playfulness and geometrical intensity together. Despite all its playfulness, this trend is also markedly cool. Black, white, grey and pink are the key colours and the ikat patterns are interpreted in completely new colours."

Source of inspiration and resource

Markus Xyländer, head of the design team: "Work-Book, the title of the book is the name of the game. Visual merchandisers can use the book as a concrete tool. It's not supposed to be just placed on a shelf but on the work table of our creative customers – preferably full of notes and flags. We would like to share our assessments of what we see as the emerging trends with our customer partners and provide initial inspirations for new campaigns, themes, colours and forms.“

The video for the book
To accompany the workbook, Barthelmess has made a video for the book this time too. The video can be seen from 3 August, on Barthelmess' YouTube channel at:
www.youtube.com/BarthelmessChannel