Art & Design Consumer Insights

Trend - Retailers across various industries, such as home and garden, crafts, and even electronics are launching with an emphases on DIY projects. By focusing on DIY, these retailers mainly provide base components rather than prebuilt items, often leading to significantly lower prices than competitors.

Insight - Many consumers prioritize saving money over saving time. When shopping for furniture, for example, consumers opt to buy more affordable DIY furniture rather than more expensive pre-built options. These priorities are now extending to other industries, with consumers in adjacent spaces opting for more engaging DIY solutions in search of both a hobby and a method of saving money. In order to appeal to these consumers in a broader sense, specialized retailers with a focus on DIY are opening.

Trend - Gaming furniture brands are releasing desks with built-in custom computer cases. These compartments reduce cable clutter, improve aesthetics, and further protect the computer from external damage, as they cannot be knocked over or dented.

Insight - While building a custom computer was a hobby previously attributed to the gaming community, it has now become the norm for many more types of consumers, such as content creators, celebrities, professional editors, and more. With such a large market of consumers into DIY computers, brands are looking to innovate products to stand out from competitors. One such innovation targets the traditional custom computer case, instead merging both the case and desk in one with unique designs.

Trend - Luxury home furnishing brands are releasing more affordable product lines to appeal to a wider range of consumers. These products blend the aesthetics and build quality of luxury brands with more affordable materials to offer products with few compromises, thus appealing to younger consumers.

Insight - The average Millennial and Gen Z consumers may not have the amount of disposable income required to invest in luxury products in all aspects of their life. However, many such consumers are embracing the 'Micro Luxury' trend, investing in select luxury products that they can afford in areas of life they prioritize. These consumers invest in higher-end furnishings, appliances, or artworks that emulate luxury living on a budget, curbing the need for constant purchases, and leading to money saved.

Trend - Engineered bamboo has emerged as a versatile building material in regions frequently impacted by severe climate-related challenges. This material is an eco-friendly and highly durable alternative that withstands extreme weather, making it ideal for constructing homes, bridges, and even skyscrapers.

Insight - Consumers frequently impacted by severe climate-related challenges often look for unique solutions to help protect their homes during extreme weather. These consumers seek solutions that provide exceptional strength and flexibility, prioritizing materials that can endure unpredictable conditions and effectively safeguard their homes and valuables from climate-related threats. Businesses that understand the unique challenges of certain regions can develop products tailored to those communities.

Trend - Brands in the smart home and AI spaces are creating smart thermostats, often powered by advanced AI, designed to reduce energy consumption in the home. These thermostats automatically adjust heating or cooling to stay within a set temperature range while consuming the least energy possible.

Insight - One of the most promising effects stemming from the introduction of artificial intelligence in nearly every sector is increased efficiency. AI can be used to allocate resources more efficiently, such as reducing waste in the restaurant and CPG fields. This is one of the most desirable effects of AI for eco-conscious consumers, who are now looking to co-opt these tools for their own kitchens and homes. Brands are responding with smart home tools that reduce unnecessary wasted energy or resources.

Trend - Decorating the inside of one's fridge is a trend called 'Fridgescaping' that is gaining popularity on social media platforms. Fridgescaping involves neatly sorting all fridge contents while adding decor in empty spaces, such as photos or fake plants.

Insight - Consumers that frequent platforms such as TikTok or Instagram often participate in trends that gain traction on the platforms to feel a sense of participation and community. Additionally, many popular trends relate to life-improvement, such as dietary trends or productivity trends. However, users are not always influenced by productivity without entertainment, leading to the creation of trends such as Fridgescaping which blend aesthetics with benefits - that of a clean and organized fridge.

Trend - Brands in the smart home space are releasing smart air conditioners designed to adapt to the needs of the residents. Some such air conditioners feature modes that monitor a user's body temperature and use AI algorithms to ensure their comfort, while others enable personalized app connectivity.

Insight - Some of the most common symptoms women experience in the perimenopausal and menopausal stages are hot flashes, or in some cases cold flashes. While these women often resort to traditional means of controlling body temperatures by using heated blankets or cooling pillows, the introduction of AI in the smart home space is making body temperature control more natural and intuitive. Brands are addressing the needs of these women with smart air conditioners that adjust based on body temperatures.

Trend - Appliance companies are releasing countertop composters designed for the kitchen. These composters accept food waste and paper-based products, which they then transform into usable fertilizers. These feature tight seals to keep scents trapped, and removable components for easy maintenance.

Insight - Environmentally-conscious consumers are acutely aware of the amount of food waste they produce. Often, these consumers will opt for products with both eco-friendly ingredients and packaging. However, discarding such packaging and producing food waste are still inevitable in the kitchen. For consumers who would like to further reduce their environmental footprint in the kitchen, brands are creating countertop composters that enable these consumers to see their eco-friendly impact in real-time.

Trend - 3D printing brands are creating more unique 3D printers that either use a tool-switcher, or several concurrent tools, to print single projects that utilize more than one material. These multi-material printers are designed for more advanced printing jobs for personal or professional use.

Insight - 3D printing is one such field that has grown far larger than just being a hobby for most. Many consumers create businesses, or streamline their startups, by using 3D printers to save drastically on production costs. However, for more complex products, 3D printing was not always viable, leading to these businesses needing to source product components from traditional manufacturing facilities. However, 3D printing brands are now catering to these needs with multi-material and multi-tool printers.

Trend - New AI tools are designed to reduce and optimize food consumption habits in the home. These tools analyze food waste patterns, grocery lists, and cooked meals, and create recommendations on how to optimize these habits. This involves purchasing different amounts of foods, altering recipes, and more.

Insight - While AI tools are continually gaining popularity in professional creative fields, such as editing photos, documents, and films, many consumers are looking to see how AI could improve and optimize their daily personal lives instead. Combining this with rising environmental concerns and increasing costs of living, consumers are turning to AI tools that optimize home management. These tools help reduce energy consumption by turning off unused appliances and minimize food waste via planning.