The Pantone Color Institute has chosen the main color for next year. A shade of peach called Peach Fuzz, which is considered “warm”, “cozy” and “emphasizes the desire to unite with the world.” Beautiful, but how can you even predict the main color a year in advance? And most importantly, why do this? Let’s figure it out.
Who Chooses the Color Of the Year?
Panton’s choice for the color of the year sets trends in design, much like how pushing the button “book of dead play” in the world of online casinos can set the tone for an exciting gaming experience
The Pantone Color Institute is part of the Pantone company. It has existed since the middle of the last century. It develops shades and palettes that are used in paint creation, various areas of design and production. Pantone themselves started out as producers of pigments. But then also moved on to issues of color standardization and developed the Pantone Matching System. They cataloged shades, assigned them numbers and names. It turned out to be convenient for any work where there is color, from painting walls to website layout. Actually, by the way, Pantone still produces paints.
And the company’s institute is a research unit that analyzes color trends and predicts them. Experts there rely on data from various areas of culture, monitor social life, and use knowledge of color psychology. They work with the fashion and lifestyle markets and help designers with forecasts. The main shade of the coming year is assigned every December – and for more than 20 years, since 2000.
How Do You Choose the Color Of the Year?
This task is not as simple as it seems. Pantone specialists begin a study in the spring that lasts almost nine months. There is no artificial intelligence or big data analysis here. Analysts work by instinct, watching fashion shows, exhibitions, and new movies. As a result, the institute’s team gathers for a secret discussion and chooses a shade based on their observations.
According to Pantone, the color of the year is “a color snapshot of what we see in global culture and expresses a general mood.” That is, an attempt to translate what is happening in the world into the language of color. But, as a rule, with a bias towards optimism: the current color of the year – red-crimson – although it looks quite alarming, should symbolize “courage, energy and optimism”, and the main shade of 2022 -go, a variant of lavender, reflects “creativity, imagination and forward movement.” By the way, for the first time, the color of 2022 was not chosen from the existing palette of shades, but was mixed from scratch, including using new digital technologies.
It’s interesting that experts cannot always agree on one shade. For example, in 2021 there were two of them: bright yellow and calm gray, and before that, two colors of the year were named in 2016 – these were shades of pink and lilac.
In addition to the color itself, which has its own unique number, the name is also important. Each shade is named associatively to expand its interpretation. It is important to make sure that a person, having heard a description of a color, can imagine it with the greatest accuracy, so they look for emotionally charged epithets for shades. And yellow becomes “illuminating” (Illuminating), gray becomes “ultimate Gray”, and lilac becomes “very beautiful” (Very Peri).
Why Choose the Color Of the Year?
From the above, it becomes clear that the “color of the year” is not taken out of thin air – this shade is already gaining popularity in all spheres of culture, and the institute’s specialists simply snatched it from the information field. But Pantone still has a fair amount of influence, and thanks to the “official title” the chosen color becomes even more popular, a snowball effect is obtained.
There is also a commercial side to choosing the color of the year, starting with obvious things like merch, which is available right there on the Pantone website, and ending with collaborations with different brands: for example, the cosmetic giant Sephora is releasing special joint collections with Pantone, dedicated to the main shade of the year, The Russian clothing brand Monochrome also collaborates with the company, producing themed monochrome sweatshirts and sweaters. Large fashion houses, however, are hardly guided by the predictions of the Color Institute (and collections are developed six months before the shows – designers hardly have time to add the color of the year). But then there are mentions in the media, if someone gets into the trend, and again the result is a stirring up of interest, everything is in the black.
Well, at least the color of the year is simply beautiful.