Pantone’s much-heralded Color of the Year has been announced, with “Very Peri” taking the top billing as pastels continue to dominate the annual list.
The lilac-esque shade of blue is supposedly embiotic of the shifts in cultural attitudes and individual expression as we move towards a more progressive and open-minded society.
Pantone identified the color as “Displaying a carefree confidence and a daring curiosity that animates our creative spirit,” adding that the “inquisitive and intriguing Very Peri helps us to embrace this altered landscape of possibilities, opening us up to a new vision as we rewrite our lives. Rekindling gratitude for some of the qualities that blue represents complemented by a new perspective that resonates today.”
The color is very much in vogue this season as fashion retailers have looked to reverse the traditional fall-winter color schemes in favor of a palette more typically associated with spring. Pantone’s secretive selection process typically yields a great amount of attention from designers, although some critics say the contest is meant as a marketing gimmick and willingly manufactures an unnecessary consumer burden on people already living in a hyper-saturated media environment.
For its part, the company says it is responding to the “[sic] zeitgeist of the moment” and that the color, which had been created for this year’s vote in an unprecedented act of invention, fit it with topical digital trends that “help us to stretch the limits of reality, opening the door to a dynamic virtual world where we can explore and create new color possibilities,” adding that it was likewise evocative of high-tech movements embodied in the rise of NFTs and the metaverse.
“The Pantone Color of the Year reflects what is taking place in our global culture, expressing what people are looking for that color can hope to answer,” Pantone Vice President Laurie Pressman said finally. “Creating a new color for the first time in the history of our Pantone Color of the Year educational color program reflects the global innovation and transformation taking place. As society continues to recognize color as a critical form of communication, and a way to express and affect ideas and emotions and engage and connect, the complexity of this new red violet infused blue hue highlights the expansive possibilities that lay before us”.
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“Displaying a carefree confidence and a daring curiosity that animates our creative spirit,” adding that the “inquisitive and intriguing Very Peri helps us to embrace this altered landscape of possibilities, opening us up to a new vision as we rewrite our lives. Rekindling gratitude for some of the qualities that blue represents complemented by a new perspective that resonates today.”
Wow, this color, like the description, makes me sick. Hopefully something sensible will return next year, but in the meantime. . . .
This is so fucking stupid... colours are like horoscopes now... just layers of bullshit over more googlycock and empty buzzwords.
What Is the Perfect Color Worth?
When I brought up the Color of the Year, Shah trod carefully at first — “I’m not going to say anything about what I think about this, O.K.?” — then went on: “You might go: ‘Oh, my God! That’s the most awful color in the world! Who would choose it?’ And then you’re like, ‘I better be careful, because it’s the Pantone Color of the Year, and everybody’s looking at it, and if I don’t, I could be left out.’ When you’ve got a platform like that, you can say it’s the color of my toenails! Can I afford not to do it, even if I don’t believe in it? It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors.”
From an interview with David Shah, editor and publisher of the “Pantone View Colour Planner.”
looks like grape Tylenol
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