What's the deal with this Color of the Year thing?
And should we care?
There was a lot of chat last week surrounding the release of Pantone’s Color of the Year 2023. It’s become a bit of an end-of-the-year spectacle that gets a lot of media attention and has us all discussing it in our social circles too (or in mine at least!).
So, I guess the two things I think it’s worth digging into here are:
1. What’s the deal? And 2. Should we care?
1. What’s the deal?
Color trend forecasting has long been a tool used by companies across many industries to inform their design practice. Forecasters are thinking months, even years ahead of the rest of us, looking at current design trends, cultural happenings, what’s going on in movies, arts, travel, sport etc to build a picture of what’s next, what’s needed and what makes sense.
The Pantone Color Institute writes that “[The Color of the Year] is a color we see crossing all areas of design; a color that serves as an expression of a mood and an attitude on the part of the consumers, a color that will resonate around the world, a color that reflects what people are looking for, a color that can hope to answer what they feel they need.”
Color has never played such an important role in design as is it does currently. Even if you don’t notice it, you’re noticing it. Subconsciously, color is informing many of our daily decisions even without us realizing. This is why it is so important that companies (who are always designing for the future), are in line with what’s ‘now’, hence the need for this type of trend forecasting.
This feels like the perfect time to refamiliarize yourself with the iconic ‘Cerulean Blue’ scene from The Devil Wear’s Prada, and if you’ve never seen it, catch this short 4min clip right here. So good.
So, onto the forecast for 2023. Let’s start with Pantone, seeing as their announcement has been the most recent.
This year, they chose Viva Magenta, which is an absolute joy to say if nothing else! It’s no secret that I’m a fan of a bold, vivacious color, so I, for one, am pretty darn happy with this choice. It’s rich, warm and playful and just the right amount of pink. In my book, it’s a classic. According to Pantone the color was chosen because it “perfectly straddles the physical and virtual and is evocative of our multidimensional world”.
This is not the first time I’ve seen color forecasters refer to the relationship between physical and digital. As the two worlds merge closer together in our every day existence, I suspect we’ll see this idea having a larger impact on color choices going forward.
Pantone doesn’t typically shy away from a bold choice. In fact, the only time in the past 20 years that they have chosen a color that wouldn’t be considered adventurous by many, was back in 2006 with a taupey beige they named Sand Dollar. Now, I got married in 2006 and can tell you that my bridesmaids didn’t wear beige, they wore turquoise dresses… and what was the Pantone color of 2005 that was clearly still having an impact? You guessed it, Blue Turquoise. Cue the ‘Cerulean’ Monologue…again.
Of course, Pantone aren’t alone in this Color of the Year pursuit, in fact, Benjamin Moore announced their Color of the Year 2023, Raspberry Blush, a little earlier in the season, and now you understand why it’s so similar to Pantone’s…
Sherwin Williams have gone for Redend Point which is a little more earthy, but still very much belongs to the same color family.
As a Brit, I always have one foot in the goings on in England. Naturally, I poke around the world wide web to see what’s happening over there with color. And yup! The same reds/pinks and cropping up over there just as much as they are here. The spectrum might be a little more wild though as it ranges from Mylands’ incredible Hot Pink (Barbiecore overload - I love it!)
To Graham & Brown’s Alizarin which seems to me like a more classic version of Viva Magenta.
Dulux however, seem to be an outlier with something more akin with Pantone’s 2006 Sand Dollar and have chosen what they call Wild Wonder, “ a positive, glowing tone, inspired by the natural world." I can’t quite get on board with this one, but I have an open mind!
2. So, should we care?
Probably. But also, maybe not. I don’t think caring about this means you have to like the chosen colors, or agree with the mood or tone that is being set on your behalf. But having an awareness of what’s trending is just generally a helpful tool to have in your back pocket because before long, these colors are going to be cropping up in the things you buy, the places you go and yes, the bridesmaid dresses you choose.
There does generally seem to be a move away from the Grey Days of prepandemic decorating when every wall seemed to be a shade of grey. On a recent episode of The Great Indoors Podcast, Farrow and Ball’s Color Curator Joa Studholme notes that we need more from our homes now. We need more emotion from them, and the colors we choose for that task are incredibly important.
We spend more time in our homes now than we ever did before, and the desire to make them feel like home; warm, inviting, inspiring, has never been so strong. We’re collectively learning that color plays a massively important role in that, in ways that we didn’t necessarily identify before. So, if the Color of the Year speaks to you, then by all means embrace it whole heartedly.
But if it doesn’t, maybe just note it’s existence from a little further aback. Give it a small nod and a wave and continue on with life in a way that make sense for you. The colors we choose for our homes should evoke great feeling and emotion. Dopamine decorating at its best!
Second Shannon's post. Joy!