Coatings

Driving Color Design

What colors will you see on the road in three to five years? That’s the vision the BASF design team offers automotive OEM customers through expertise in trend research and the design and creation of bold, unique colors.

Color is a major and strategic factor that defines the first impression of a vehicle. It calls attention to its shape and the automaker’s brand image. A well-suited color on a car can be a make-or-break decision for a potential buyer. Designing a car color is challenging. It considers the complex interplay of hue, saturation, texture, surface, and metallic or pearlescent effects. BASF’s color designers continually monitor the trend indicators that determine the future look of vehicles and create appealing colors for a very demanding market. BASF’s world leadership in color keeps automotive designers on the cutting edge, delivering what their customers want, and staying ahead of the competition.

World map showing our global design centers

Global Design Expertise

With a global team and design centers in Asia Pacific, EMEA and the Americas, BASF blends global presence, local expertise, a deep understanding of color trends and thoughtful analysis of the competitive market.

The customer is at the center of all that we do, and our design team works with nearly all Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) of vehicles around the world. We inspire automotive designers and support them with custom solutions including digital and virtual color tools to help them drive their global color development and coating application programs.

“As futurists we rethink the idea of the car as a product – driving colors for new technologies and new mobility concepts.”

Mark Gutjahr
Global Head of Automotive Color Design for BASF

“Lifestyles and mobility patterns are changing rapidly – young people are particularly looking for more and more color in their lives.”

Chiharu Matsuhara
Head of Automotive Color Design for Asia Pacific

Automotive Color Trends stands for daring color concepts. This brand of BASF is built on world leadership in state-of-the-art color and coatings technology.

The Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings offers an in-depth exploration of color trends, analyzing preferences on both global and regional levels.

Experience our patented platform for digital color visualization: With AUROOM^®, designers can access colors of current, past and future vehicle models in a realistic way.

We are committed to delivering high-performance, visually striking color solutions, while reducing our environmental footprint every step of the way.