It's always important to look back on what has been going on with the past design trends to understand in what direction we should move on. The folks at Colourlovers came up with this infographic that shows very simply what the most popular colours where used/chosen last year. To come up with these results (which they've done for 2 years now) they have an open voting site where you can choose your favourite colour for this year. Well, 2011's results are here and it's interesting to see what's been most popular: different hues of red/bright pink and more use of blue and teal. They also have other parameters for comparison, such as gender preferences, geographical trends and the keywords most associated with the colours. You can also see 2010's results as a comparison, and the conclusion is that the overall trend is moving from vibrant yellows and oranges to more soothing shades like teal and muted purples. It's also interesting to see how the experts' predictions for last year were mostly completely off, no one was having any of those dark earthy hues. For 2010's results you can go here, and you can also vote for your predicted colour of the year here.