The colors shaping today’s architecture and design aren't the loudest ones in the room. As design preferences continue to evolve, we're seeing a growing appreciation for colors that feel grounded, effortless and enduring. Designers are moving toward palettes that offer flexibility, coordinate effortlessly with adjacent materials and remain relevant long after a project is complete.

That evolution is reflected in Ancient Marble, the 2027 Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings Color of the Year. With its soft gray-green tone, Ancient Marble offers something increasingly valuable in design today: a color that feels distinctive without feeling risky, contemporary without feeling temporary. It reflects where design is headed while providing the durability, adaptability and timeless appeal today’s projects demand.

Meet Ancient Marble

This stony gray-green hue brings a sense of quiet sophistication to the built environment and manufactured products alike. A thoughtful adaptation for metal applications, it is softened and grounded with gray undertones, delivering a subtle connection to nature while offering flexibility across building exteriors, metal roofing systems, architectural facades and adjacent materials.

Designed to Endure

Ancient Marble is distinctive without feeling extreme, making it a natural evolution of today’s neutral palette. Across industries, architects and designers are embracing colors and finishes that feel authentic, restorative and deeply connected to the natural world. Warm neutrals, earth-inspired palettes and subtle color expressions are replacing the cooler gray tones that have dominated for more than a decade.

This Color of the Year offers a fresh perspective that feels progressive without becoming dated. Its balanced gray-green character allows it to coordinate easily with evolving materials, finishes and architectural styles, helping designers create projects with lasting appeal.

A Forecast-Inspired Color

Ancient Marble SW 6162 emerged from the Sherwin-Williams Colormix® forecast, translating the fresh energy of Celery SW 6421 into a softer, grayed-green hue designed for the unique needs of the building products market.

Sherwin-Williams color experts examine the cultural, architectural and market influences shaping the future of color. Beyond identifying emerging color directions, finishes and design influences for coil and extrusion coatings, our forecasts provide a deeper understanding of how these shifts are likely to impact different market segments in the years ahead

Colors Designed for Versatility Across Markets

Colors are no longer selected in isolation. Roofing interacts with siding. Window systems coordinate with facade materials. Finishes must work together to create a cohesive visual experience. Pairing Ancient Marble with colors from the SHIFT Color Trend Forecast highlights its versatility across diverse industries and applications while maintaining broad market appeal.

Coordinating colors allow Ancient Marble to shine as the central hue, while offering complementary tones that enhance its versatile character. Ancient Marble acts as the unifying element, bringing depth and vibrancy across a range of industries and applications for a cohesive and inviting look.

• Builder brings depth and familiarity to residential projects, pairing naturally with Ancient Marble for roofing, garage doors and exterior accents.
• Precious Pyrite introduces a refined champagne-toned metallic effect that complements Ancient Marble in multifamily, high-rise and commercial environments, creating visual interest while maintaining elegance.
• Restore reflects the growing momentum behind rich browns and nature-based neutrals. Together with Ancient Marble, it creates a grounded palette well suited for agricultural buildings, barndominiums and residential metal roofing applications.
• Interstellar offers another sophisticated metallic pairing that elevates architectural projects while preserving the understated character at the heart of the trend.
• Fractal provides remarkable versatility across segments, serving equally well as an accent color, window frame finish or primary architectural statement.

Flexible Across Applications

One of this neutral hue’s greatest strengths is its adaptability across both coil and extrusion coating applications. From metal roofing, wall panels and agricultural buildings to window systems, storefronts, curtain walls and architectural framing, Ancient Marble offers designers and manufacturers a flexible option that integrates seamlessly into a wide variety of project types. Whether used as a subtle accent or featured more prominently within a color scheme, this color provides opportunities for thoughtful design across market segments.

Beauty Meets Proven Performance

Our expertise extends into how color can be applied to various coating systems to perform in the real world. Ancient Marble is available across multiple Sherwin-Williams coating technologies, including Fluropon®, allowing customers to specify the color across a broad range of applications and performance requirements. It is also available in carefully selected finish options, including standard, Classic II mica and textured effects that add depth without overpowering the color's natural sophistication.

This intentional focus on proven finishes reflects another key theme shaping the market: confidence. Designers are increasingly drawn to finishes that offer subtle beauty, trusted performance and long-term durability, and our coatings are engineered to meet those demands.

Guided by DesignHouse Expertise

Behind every Sherwin-Williams Color of the Year selection is the expertise of the Sherwin-Williams DesignHouse team. By analyzing emerging influences across architecture, consumer behavior, manufacturing, interior design and cultural trends, DesignHouse color experts identify the signals shaping future color preferences. Their role is not simply to predict what color will be popular next, but to translate complex trend intelligence into practical guidance customers can confidently apply.

Ancient Marble represents the intersection of trend forecasting, industry knowledge and real-world application insight. It demonstrates how thoughtful color selection can help manufacturers, architects and designers create projects that feel relevant today while maintaining their value well into the future.

More Than a Color

The 2027 Color of the Year is lively, restorative, organic and balanced. It embodies lived-in beauty and luxe simplicity. Ancient Marble offers a fresh perspective on neutrality, a deeper connection to nature and a refined aesthetic that aligns with the direction of contemporary design. Paired with the coordinating SHIFT palette and supported by industry-leading coating technologies, Ancient Marble provides a powerful source of inspiration for the next generation of architectural and manufacturing projects.