Top Commercial Interior Design Trends for 2025
Top Commercial Interior Design Trends for 2025
2025 Design and Color Influences
We enter the new year with cautious optimism. A new administration will bring new ideas and new approaches. How will those approaches impact interior design and color decisions?
History shows us that in times of transition, we tend to be more conservative in our design and color selections.
Expect colors to be more restrained and muted. Focusing on natural and neutral tones. While there will be many mid-tone colors, we will also see them move to the dark end of the spectrum, but they will be paired with warm whites, beiges and warm light grays.
We’ll also see softer and richer wood tones. As the palette warms, we will also see the growth of browns. A perfect complement to the more vegetal colors we will continue to see play an important role in color palettes.
Interior Design Trends
Design will focus on traditional styling with stronger lines and less dramatic curves. Economy of production will drive easily produced shapes that do not require special skills or equipment to keep manufacturing costs low.
Less emphasis will be placed on embellishment. It will focus on classic looks that will stand the test of time. That being said, the definition of classic has shifted and has more modern sensibility. Also, there is still room for playfulness. Accents will be used to add a whimsical touch.
Interiors will still focus on comfort, adaptability and connectivity across all segments.
Commercial Design
You can expect commercial design to continue to strive for more “welcoming and healing” environments. The pandemic drove a new emphasis on personal health and well-being. We also started to rethink how we approached our lives and how we chose to live. We look for those comforts in the places that we frequent. We want to add enjoyable life experiences. And we want to feel valued and cared for. Spaces need to adapt.
In healthcare, we want to feel nurtured, not “examined”. Technology is necessary for proper care but is also made to be less obtrusive. Cleverly hidden or only brought into the room when necessary or for quiet monitoring. But it can also be at our fingertips, providing a level of control of the space and adding to our comfort. This is not just for the patient and family but also for the staff, with more respite spaces to allow staff to recharge and step away for a moment, allowing them a certain level of control.
Shopping will be a welcome use of our time and not a drudgery. Look for more shopper-tainment to keep you coming back. Retail isn’t dead; it’s being reimagined to keep our
attention and encourage us to return. Like so many things, it must be engaging and refreshed regularly, so you want to come back and see what’s new. Technology will prompt us, connect us and guide us through these spaces.
As we head back to the office, often for a few days in the week, spaces are being opened up for more collaboration, with nooks and pods for concentrated work, free of disruptions. These spaces will be built for comfort, often associated with working from home, with furnishings from collaborations with residential brands. Amenities will facilitate opportunities for engagement, such as a coffee/snack bar, in-house yoga classes, and outdoor seating areas with nature views.
As we travel, we’ll expect more personalized and unique hoteling experiences. Often geared toward the property location. Less cookie cutter and more “je ne sais quoi.”
Spaces that are unique and novel. Think AirBnB — a home away from home. A way to connect to the larger community’s history and culture. An experience, a memory, even when you are on business. But still providing all your comfort and the technology needs people want and expect to have at their fingertips.
There is a lot to look forward to as design figures out how to meet the needs of a more sophisticated customer base but with the challenges related to cost, environmental impact and shortened turnaround times and changeover. Customers get bored quickly. The challenge is figuring out how to give them what they want and need before the cycle changes. It requires nimbleness and innovation. But the design profession has always been up to the challenge.
A Deeper Dive into Color Trends
Singing the Blues
We’ve seen a gradual movement toward more variations of blue. We can expect blue to take on equal footing with green.
The range of blues extends from soft, powdery blues to rich, almost black navy. A bridging color between the two is the resurgence of rich teal.
Be Sure to Spec Your Veggies.
A return of the peas, carrots and corn palette from the 70s but with a more earthen and neutralized approach. Warm and comforting, they create welcoming and inviting spaces. We can expect to see them used individually, in concert with each other and with warm wood tones.
Tickled Pink
Pink seems to be everywhere. Will it stick around is the question. An excellent color for healthcare since it reflects nicely on the skin for a healthier glow. Soft and powdery without being “sweet.” I anticipate it to continue to shift toward peach tones and be a wonderful compliment to the warm browns on the horizon.
CS Palette options:
Oakie Dokie
Woods are revisiting oak with a sophisticated twist. They are taking on a more European influence but are being sourced domestically. They embrace the variety of graining, new finishing techniques and surface treatments. It reflects the evolution to more active grains and color play, as seen in walnuts and exotics, but in a more economical species. Movement and variation of the grain are more ”residential” in appearance and as spaces work to be more “homey,” they find a place in more commercial applications.
CS Woodgrains:
It will be interesting to see how these trends evolve throughout the year. Here is to a wonderful 2025 for you and yours!
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Laura is a Senior Product Designer at Construction Specialties, primarily supporting color and trend work within our New Product Delivery team. She is responsible for delivering powerful and moving color palettes, textures, patterns, collections, and designs that resonate with an evolving customer.
Laura also conducts research and drives ideation and development activities. She has an extensive history of designing products for the commercial interiors market, including utilizing various design tools and Voice of Customer research to bring products from concept to commercialization. With her passion for learning new things, she constantly seeks out new information that will help her develop products customers will love.