Tranquil Times Ahead: How to Style the Dulux Colour of the Year 2020

The Dulux Colour of the Year for 2020 has been announced at last. Tranquil Dawn, a deeply soothing, cool-toned green, has been picked by the colour trend experts at Dulux to act as a much-needed antidote to what they describe as an ‘increasingly disconnected’ society. It sounds gloomy but it’s not – bear with us!

Intended to embody the nation’s mood and outlook as we approach a brand new decade, Tranquil Dawn provides quite a contrast to the Dulux Colour of the Year 2019, ‘Spiced Honey’, providing a haven of tranquility and calm as opposed to a blanket of velvety luxury. 

“Tranquil Dawn reflects a growing desire to understand what it is to be human at a time when advances in technology are making us feel increasingly disconnected from each other.” – Dulux

The panel of interior trend experts that helped Dulux identify the new Colour of the Year for 2020 also identified that the world ‘has a growing desire to understand what makes us human’, and Tranquil Dawn is therefore intended to help us reconnect with our human side ‘against a background of increasing technological power’ and a chaotic society. 

Marianne Shillingford, Creative Director, Dulux UK, has a somewhat sunnier approach to explaining the colour, and describes the coming new decade as heralding a ‘new dawn’, and the hazy, pale green tones of Tranquil dawn offers the calming, comforting return to nature that most of us feel we need in our lives.

Whatever the symbolism and deeper meaning, we here at runrug.com we can’t help but adore this elegant shade. We’ve been taking a closer look at this incredible colour and the many different colour palettes it can be styled against in the home, of which Dulux has created four: Care, Play, Meaning and Creativity.

So here are our tips on how to style the Dulux Colour of the Year 2020 – Tranquil Dawn:

Tranquil Dawn and Ivory: Care

Taking inspiration from Dulux’s ‘A Home for Care’ palette, the combination of the new Colour of the Year with ivory shades creates a wonderfully calming, nurturing feel in any room. Opting for warmer shades of ivory and cream will counter the coolness of Tranquil Dawn, keeping the room balanced and inviting. Try painting the largest expanses of wall with your ivory shades and balancing this with smaller strips of Tranquil Dawn for a subtle, soothing look, and add pops of richer neutrals or dark greys using textiles and accessories for contrast.

You can also continue this caring colour palette throughout the home with the addition of ivory carpets, carpet runners and stair runners mixed with Tranquil Dawn walls. As both colours are so light and airy, you don’t need to worry about accidentally creating dark, cramped spaces. Below is our popular Hellas cream stair runner sitting next to a swatch of Tranquil Dawn; the two marry up perfectly, don’t you think? Especially with the bright white wood of the staircase beneath the runner.

Tranquil Dawn and Yellow: Play

Dulux’s ‘A Home for Play’ palette was created as a bolder alternative to work alongside the Tranquil Dawn shade. In the above example from Dulux you can see Tranquil Dawn being used as a calming influence in a small strip on the far left of this very playful kitchen. 

But you don’t have to confine the Tranquil Dawn elements to such small areas; you could switch this around completely and use the bolder colours as accents with Tranquil Dawn taking the majority of the limelight. That’s the beauty of the Play colour palette – you can play around with these incredible colours to find what works for your room. If you’re using yellow tones, we’ve found that yellow-green shades work just as well as the mustard-like shade in the Dulux Play palette, thanks to the shared green properties of both. 

Below we have paired our Montana Green stair runner with our Tranquil Dawn swatch to demonstrate our point; try painting your stair railings in Tranquil dawn for a small and subtle pairing of these colours, or go all-out and paint your hallway walls in Tranquil Dawn for a more dominant combination.

Tranquil Dawn and Charcoal Grey: Meaning

The combination of Tranquil Dawn and grey shades links into Dulux’s ‘A Home for Meaning’ palette, creating rooms of low-key luxury. In the Dulux example above you can see how they have used a feature wall technique to contrast a deep charcoal grey with Tranquil Dawn, lifting the palette further with a lighter grey set of bedding to keep a sense of brightness and positivity.

The ‘meaning’ is entirely up to you, whether your scheme means belonging, luxury, tranquility or simply an escape from the hectic elements of modern life. The ‘Meaning’ palette is refreshingly neutral, making it very easy to work with on both large and small scales. Below you will see our classic plain grey stair runner working beautifully next to our Tranquil Dawn swatch – the warmer tones of this deep grey act as a perfect counterbalance to the cooler feel of the Tranquil Dawn shade, keeping the space feeling positive and inviting. 

Tranquil Dawn and Green: Creativity

The fourth and final palette from the Tranquil Dawn Dulux Colour of the Year 2020, ‘A Home for Creativity’ creates warm and expressive rooms for the creative and adventurous among us. In the above example from Dulux you can see the Tranquil Dawn shade has again been used as a calming influence in small doses, allowing the richer teal and green shades to pop out and create a warm, cosy atmosphere. 

This palette also benefits greatly from the addition of rich plum and burnt orange elements, which add extra warmth and creative tones to a space; try adding these in the form of ornaments and textiles, while adding natural textures like wicker and sisal to keep the room balanced. 

We especially love the pairing of Tranquil Dawn with rich blue-green shades to create a moody-yet-creative look. Below we have teamed our rich Gabbeh blue stair runner with the Tranquil Dawn swatch and, quite frankly, we feel it’s a winner. The deep blue-green, almost jewel-like shade works beautifully with the cooler elements of the Dulux colour, giving a subtle nod to the ‘back to nature’ intentions of Tranquil Dawn.

Will you be incorporating the new Dulux Colour of the Year into your home in 2020? We want to see your Tranquil Dawn interior creations if you do! Share with us on on social media channels below and let us see how you get on.