Interior Design Trends 2020

This video details my picks for the emerging interior design trends of 2020: the Modern Industrial Style, matte black finishes, metal accents, and supergraphics. I walk the showrooms of Waterworks, Artistic Tile, and De Sousa Hughes in San Francisco to point out examples in their collections that illustrate these trends.

Trend 1 – Modern Industrial Style

The Modern Industrial Style incorporates elements that you would find in a commercial or industrial setting.[1] It brings in features like knurled and facetted surfaces, wheel handles, industrial levers, and it highlights visible nuts, bolts, and screws. However, this style tends to utilize more delicate finishes than you would find in a factory such as polished nickel, shiny brass, or gold.

While many of those features are functional in industrial applications, their role in the Modern Industrial Style is primarily decorative. For example, the practical application of knurling is to provide a gripping surface. Within the context of this style, it is applied to plumbing fixtures, lighting, towel bars, and cabinet hardware primarily for its rich texture. The scoring in the metal provides a beautiful play of light and shadow and through textural contrast, draws attention to the sleek smooth qualities of the adjacent metal. While cabinet pulls and towel bars may benefit ever so slightly from the enhanced grip of knurling, these items function successfully without it. In this application, the driving factor of this surface treatment is aesthetic. Furthermore, the decorative faceted surfaces of luxury industrial plumbing fixtures were never intended to be pipe wrenched. In most finishes, the surfaces should not even be touched by an abrasive cleaner.

This trend has emerged as real estate prices have pushed people inhabit industrial spaces, converting them into living and commercial spaces. The Modern Industrial Style works seamlessly in converted industrial and loft spaces, and it also lends itself to transitional interiors.

Trend 2 – Matte Black

Matte black is an emerging trend in kitchen appliances, plumbing fixtures, decorative hardware, furniture, and lighting.[2] It is an excellent choice for achieving a dark moody room. Matte black plumbing fixtures in a powder room can be used to create tonal consistency throughout the space that you never could never achieve with pops of standard white plumbing fixtures.

Matte black is a powerful tool in a palette because you can achieve maximum contrast between, matte black which is the absence of light, and a gleaming metal that reflects the light. The same principal is at play when you combine any color with matte black as all colors reflect light and matte black does not. Juxtaposing a lacquered or shiny black finish with a gleaming metal would not provide the same effect. Matte black is extremely glamorous when paired with metallic finishes because the contrast draws attention to the reflective qualities of the metal. Matte black can also be used to emphasize textural qualities of other materials in a palette such as organic wood grains or coarsely woven linens.[3] Although matte black may not work in every interior, this shade is an excellent instrument for achieving drama and emphasizing the materiality of other elements in the palette.

Trend 3 – Metal Accents

The introduction of metal accents into various materials is another trend. High end tile lines combine metal accents with glass, marble, and other stones.[4] Metal accents are being incorporated into stone and wood flooring and surprisingly even a luxury rug collection.[5] Metal inlay strips are appearing inset in custom cabinetry and high-end furniture. Campaign corners are also being integrated on furniture and built-in cabinetry as decorative accents and less so for durability, which was their traditional purpose. Metal accents are a great way to introduce modern glamor into a project.

Trend 4 – Super Graphics

Super graphics are large-scale painted or applied decorative art. This trend has its origins in the bold, Swiss-inspired, painted, supergraphics that Barbara Stauffacher Solomons pioneered at Sea Ranch in the 70’s. With the invention of wide format printing, and mass-market tools for the creation and manipulation of imagery, Super Graphics is having a Renaissance. Photography, art, and especially landscapes are and utilizing the formerly neglected canvas of architectural surfaces.

Murals and decorative painting have long been utilized by interior designers to enhance spaces. Companies such Gracie, de Gournay, or Fromental provide luxury hand-painted wallcoverings which are often designed to gracefully frame architectural elements or play with traditional wall panels, interpreting them as windows into fanciful environments. The power of digital imaging applications such as Adobe Photoshop, have modernized custom wall treatments allowing interior designers to readily explore and print unique imagery that responds to elements in the spaces such as windows, furniture, lighting, and mirrors. Custom wallcoverings were previously an exclusive treatment with long lead times, but they are now more accessible to a broader audience.

In interior design, supergraphics are featured in wallpaper, rug, and fabric collections. A small object like a flower or insect can be blown up to a larger scale, even the size of a wall or the full width of fabric, for dramatic effect; a continuous image such as a landscape can wrap an entire room.[6] The trend of supergraphics thinks beyond the constraints of framed, wall-hung, artwork and may utilize any surface in the environment as a medium for decorative art. Scale is exploited for dramatic effect, resulting and compelling and immersive environments. It is exciting to see the creativity this spurs and the influence this trend with have on interior design.

Notes

[1] The industrial plumbing fixtures featured in the video are all from Waterworks. See specifically, their R.W. Atlas and Regulator collections. The knurled cabinet pull is from Waterwork’s custom cabinetry Pullman Collection.
https://www.waterworks.com/us_en/

[2] The featured faucet was Moen’s Nio Matte black one-handle high arc pulldown kitchen faucet.
https://www.moen.com/

[3] The console with geometric inlay was Altura Furniture’s Fretwork collection, represented at De Sousa Hughes in San Francisco. The metal finish is dark bronze and not truly matte black. This more accurately an example of metal accents featured in luxury furniture.
https://www.alturafurniture.com/

[4] Featured metal inlay tiles were all from Artistic Tile: Fan Club Blue Ombre with Brass Mosaic, Quickstep Silver Wave Wj Mosaic Polished Stone, and Grand Gatsby Thassos Black Blend Wj Mosaic Mixed Finish Stone.
https://www.artistictile.com/

[5] Rugs with metal accents are Erden’s, Edition One, Etched & Regimented, represented at De Sousa Hughes in San Francisco.
https://www.erdenusa.com/

[6] Fliepaper wallcovering collection by photographer Don Flood, represented by De Sousa Hughes in San Francisco. The patterns shown were Fly, Ficus, & Beetle I.
http://www.fliepaper.com/