The Color of the Future: 10,000 Views by Hakuhodo DY Holdings Inc.

“What do you think the world will be like twenty years from now?” On being asked that question, probably not that many people could put into words what they imagine the future holds. After all, they haven’t seen it yet. And such perceptions are not easily shared across generational boundaries.
 
Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living has for many years done research on sei-katsu-sha: our term for people not simply as consumers but as fully rounded individuals with their own lifestyles, aspirations, and dreams.  We zeroed in on color, which is more primordial than language, and which anyone of any age can readily describe . We asked ten thousand males and females aged 15-69 all over Japan what color 2021 was, what color 2040 would be, and what images each color conjured up. We thus attempted to give visual shape to their intangible perceptions of the present and future.
 
The result is a pair of posters. “The Year 2040: An Image in Colors” captures differences in how men and women in each age group perceive the future by combining illustrations with colors. “Imagining 2040 in Color” classifies changes in perceptions of the future versus the present into four patterns and represents them with 10,000 colored lines. Each poster is accompanied by statements on what the colors signify, giving more definite shape to people’s perceptions. Until now analyses of such instinctive, intuitive attitudes have generally taken the form of small sample surveys in the form of group interviews or in-depth interviews. This new approach succeeds in making the human emotions lying behind the data more relatable.
 
These results, along with the posters and a detailed analysis, were shared in talks and on our website.