Colors, Effects and Emotions

Color turns cars into emotional products. Except for the shape, no other factor influences the way a vehicle is perceived as much as its color, giving the basecoat a crucial impact on the perception of a car.

The diversity of basecoats is tremendous and has increased further within the past few years. From basic shades to complex effects – the possibilities for innovative color concepts are almost limitless. Our product portfolio contains solvent borne and waterborne basecoats. Both technologies are constantly updated. Our competence comprises all process steps in the basecoat development: We research trends and design innovative and creative color concepts. Furthermore, we have years in experience in translating design ideas into viable paints that are developed in our laboratories.

With our Individual Colors we cover the growing trend toward individualization. This program enables the production of individual colors on a small scale – based on the customer’s distinctive design ideas and requirements. If needed, a color can be produced for an individual car body.

As one of the auto industry’s leading surface solutions suppliers, we have an excellent understanding of color trends and their role in the future automotive market. Every year, our color designers create Automotive Color Trends, an innovating collection of new colors based on extensive research and in-depth analysis of global trends and cultural shifts that will influence automotive colors three to five years in the future.

Color Trends

The perfect color match

It is not only the design of the color, but also the color match that is significant for the perfect appearance of a car. With our ColorCARE^®program, we help ensure that plastic add-on parts, such as bumpers and side-view mirrors, are a perfect match to the car body. Although the parts are usually manufactured at different locations, this tool helps provide perfect color harmony.

Learn more about our ColorCARE® program

Next level of color harmony

We have developed an innovative tool to monitor and improve the performance of our colors. It utilizes colometric data from the paint line and merges it with product and batch information systems. Based on special key performance indicators (KPIs), the tool permits faster and standardized control about color performance and increases the tinting accuracy and batch-to-batch consistency. In addition, it supports the color match between body and parts.