Retailer Modern Rugs carried out the study that used a decade of Google Trend data for the most popular interior design colour searches from January 2010 to January 2020, all visualised in an animated bar chart. See: The most popular Fired Earth paint colours The biggest winners of the decade along with grey, were black and white, consistently duking it out for the nation’s favourite. This was down to the nation’s love of monochromatic colour schemes that complimented many modern motifs. In the end, grey came out on top, bolstered by the resurgence of Scandinavian design in homes that swept across the country. Grey is loved for its ability to be versatile, while being a great middle ground to blur the edges of black and white. While grey, black and white were huge winners this decade, other colours weren’t as popular with the nation. The study found that, while red is hugely popular during the festive period for obvious reasons, it failed to gain any interest during the rest of the year. Earthy brown did not fare much better either, as the nation opted for variations of other plain hues, such as muted clay to introduce warmth into their homes. See: Colour trends 2020– the top hues of the year The study also found that, compared to previous decades, we became more colour-curious, with an eye-opening 37% of increased colour-related searches. With annual announcements of ‘Colour of the Year’ by Dulux and Pantone, pink, yellow and orange all topped out with Honeysuckle, Cherished Gold and Tangerine Tango taking COTY throughout the decade. Teal was also a huge riser during the decade, coming from almost non-existence to racking up thousands of searches every month by 2019. The study found that this can be attributed to its all-season appeal. An unexpected burst onto the scene was rose gold, sparked by the release of the iPhone 6 in 2015. The latest edition of the Apple phone sparked a cultural clamour for the colour, being used for picture frames, kitchen appliances and more. See: The 10 most popular Farrow & Ball colours, according to the internet
