It is not enough for items to be well designed any longer. Increasingly they need to have an extra twist. One of the newer forms of “added value” is responsiveness.

Take for example the paint that changes colour according to temperature. Lean against a wall covered with it and the heat from your body will alter its hue where you touch. Or have the whole appearance of your room change as the sunshine hits your black wall and turns it white. Eclipse paint, as featured on www.trendhunter.com, also scores as a retro product. Remember those Hypercolor T-shirts, sweat-tops and baseball caps from the 1980s?