Stationery Trends for 2017 – The Best of Paperworld

Stationery Trends

Last week saw the world’s leading international trade fair for stationery, Paperworld, take over part of the gigantic Messe Frankfurt exhibition centre. As well as bringing global suppliers together, one of the aims of the exhibition is to help visitors to discover the stationery trends of tomorrow in this ever-growing sector.

Over 1,500 exhibitors from 65 countries showed the latest products for the modern office and private paper and stationery users – and we were there! We trawled the entire exhibition (much to our little legs dismay) to make sure we didn’t miss out on any up and coming stationery trends and new creative ideas.  So for all your stationery fashionistas out there, here’s the lowdown on what to expect in S/S 2017…..

Stationery Trends 2017.

Colour schemes:

Rose gold reins supreme – on everything. From notebook and diaries to pens and pencils, paperclips, rulers, you name it, there was a rose gold tinted version. Perhaps no surprise given the prevalence of rose gold in the fashion market. It seems yellow gold is so, well, 2016.

Monochromes with metallic detailing – striking black and white geometric patterns with gold line work across them appeared in several quarters on the cover of notebooks and diaries. Such bold patterns with the contrasting glint of metal really do catch the eye.

Pastel shades – as you walked up and down the aisles and glanced at the stands you couldn’t help but notice the swathes of pastel colours, a particularly popular combination being pink and mint green.

Monochrome-with-metallic-foils

Materials:

Brown craft – probably the most prevalent material to appear across the exhibition in all sorts of journals and desk stationery items was brown board. No seller’s collection appeared complete without a range in this ubiquitous material. The natural colour and grained texture of this material creates a sense of going back to nature and gives a hand made look to the items (even if mass produced!!). We’d like to think we were ahead of the curve on this one, as our own kraft notebooks have been around for over a year now.

paperworld-kraft-trends

Recycled  – green tea, coffee and building materials, (yes you did read that right), featured in re-cycled stationery products that we came across. There was a fair amount of recycled goods across all product lines, but we noticed a distinct movement towards recycled materials on notebooks and journals. What was once the realm of the niche supplier, is clearly becoming more mainstream.

Function:

Tech – unsurprisingly the digital world is creeping into the market. There were the new players, such as Techstorm with their O2O notebook that is a specially designed to allow it to be turned into a digital version of your book when paired with their app.  And then there was the globally established mega brand, Moleskine, with their Smart Writing Set, that magically transforms what you write or draw in your Moleskine notebook into a digital format without any need for scanning.

Motivation – motivational notebooks had already begun to make an appearance in 2016, but judging by what was on display at Paperworld, you won’t be able to escape them in 2017.  Journals with motivational quotes printed on the front cover will continue to be big business, as will books with specifically designed pages and templates to aid your inspiration.

motivational-journals-paperworld

Lifestyle Journals – journaling is being brought back as a lifestyle habit by Leuchtturm1917 with their ‘Some lines a day – the 5 year memory book, in which the user is encouraged to write a few lines every day to create their own personal 5 year diary. Treuleben, the luxury leather journal company, introduced their ‘Work Life Calendar‘. This lifestyle diary has more space for Friday to Sunday than for Monday to Thursday, to encourage the user to think about working to live, rather than living to work.

So there you have it. The stationery trends for 2017, spotted by us, from Paperworld Frankfurt. Will you be buying ‘on trend’ this year?