NCS Colour Trends: Mike Klar interprets 2025+ trend direction Inner

TREND 2025

Interpreting the colours of Inner

Designer Mike Klar takes his approach to bringing NCS Colour Trends to life. He interprets the direction of Inner through the redecoration of his studio and a painting. Explore the project and take part of his perspectives on colour and design work.

If there's one topic I'm passionate about, it's colour design. Colour can do more than just decorate a wall - but colour is not just colour. It is based on our subjective perception. With the NCS - Natural Colour System, colour tones can be precisely described on any surface, be it fabric, paint or packaging. NCS understands colours just like our eyes and has different tools for correct and intuitive colour management.

I was allowed to choose one of four new 2025+ colour trends that NCS has just launched: a curated palette of six curated hues for the term INNER.

INNER describes a world of colour that symbolizes a turning inwards. Consisting of warm, earthy and humane mid-tones that have a subtle and timeless strength. Moments of calm in turbulent times. A palette that is also familiar to me in my living environment.

If there's one topic I'm passionate about, it's colour design. Colour can do more than just decorate a wall - but colour is not just colour. It is based on our subjective perception. With the NCS - Natural Colour System, colour tones can be precisely described on any surface, be it fabric, paint or packaging. NCS understands colours just like our eyes and has different tools for correct and intuitive colour management.

I was allowed to choose one of four new 2025+ colour trends that NCS has just launched: a curated palette of six curated hues for the term INNER.
INNER describes a world of colour that symbolizes a turning inwards. Consisting of warm, earthy and humane mid-tones that have a subtle and timeless strength. Moments of calm in turbulent times. A palette that is also familiar to me in my living environment.

the project

Designing the studio

My idea was to create a "room within a room" in my new studio, in which, in a second step, I created a canvas painting from the same colour palette to provide a stage for my "interior" on the outside.

The deliberately formal wall design is based on the "blind" door, which no longer has a function, and takes this as the starting point for the division of space. For me, it symbolizes access to the "inner door", what we find when we go within ourselves in a contemplative or creative process.

The painting was created in an intuitive way, without a sketch or idea of the final result. It shows my introspection in the colour space of the six tones and represents an organic and also transparent contrast. Depending on the placement on the colour surfaces, different tones blur with the background and others stand out more strongly. Just as people appear in different aspects in different contexts.

In this way, the inside resonates with the outside and the outside with the inside. An opening with a closing.

DESIGN TOOLS

The creative process

The colour effect depends heavily on the context. Based on my picture on the subject of INNER, I worked with the tools from NCS for the rest of the room design. The front part of the room was to be designed in a more "open" colour. Using Colourpin Pro, with which you can measure every tone in the environment and get an exact colour match, I could try different options. Together with NCS Index 2050 and NCS+ Pro I tested my selections.

Digital colour

NCS+ Pro was of great help as it allowed me to visualise my ideas and try different colour combinations, all within the moodboard.

to Mike's moodboard

The styling is rounded off by a stronger yellow of the chairs, the olive of the sideboard and a light blue vase, which forms a gentle complimentary contrast and thus draws more on the colours of the "outside world" (sky blue + grass green). For me, the bird of paradise flower forms a final synthesis in its complex form & colourfulness to the organic-warm colour world of the picture.

It was exciting for me to interpret the given trend direction Inner in my own way, and to further develop the project with the help of the NCS tools. The easy switch between analog and digital work and the professional handling of colour values made my work easier. I am already looking forward to the next project with NCS+.