Into the Magentaverse: Viva Magenta is Pantone's 2023 Color of the Year
The original magenta ushered in a birth of new colors
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For its 2023 Color of the Year, Pantone went with a color to represent the physical world meeting the virtual. Welcome to the Magentaverse.
Viva Magenta, or Pantone 18-1750, sounds like a battle cry, and in fact, the name “magenta” comes from a battle — the Battle of Magenta, Italy, in 1859 (the dye was originally patented as “fuchsine” earlier that year, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry). Pantone describes the color as assertive, but not aggressive, a “nuanced crimson red tone that presents a balance between warm and cool.”
The merging of the IRL and online worlds was an impetus for the last Color of the Year too. Very Peri, a periwinkle blue, was inspired by video gaming and the metaverse. It seemed timely; the company formerly known as Facebook had just rebranded as Meta to highlight its ambitions in augmented and virtual reality. One year later, though, Meta just laid off more than 11,000 employees and its metaverse division reported $3.67 billion in quarterly operating losses. Meanwhile, the company’s social media apps chase TikTok, which uses a Viva Magenta-adjacent red in its notifications and buttons, the New York Times noted. The metaverse won’t be built in a year, or maybe it won’t be built at all, but the convergence of the physical and virtual may well be one of the defining trends of a decade unfolding in the wake of COVID.
Viva Magenta is Pantone’s third Color of the Year to reference the pandemic and its aftershocks. Its 2021 colors were the duel Ultimate Gray and Illuminating, a yellow-and-gray storm-clouds-and-sunshine combo for a year that saw widespread vaccinations and more COVID deaths than any other year. Very Peri suggested some remnant of the virtual Fortnite concerts and Zoom culture accelerated by the pandemic was the future.
Pantone pitches Viva Magenta as a color for rebuilding. It writes a new narrative and encourages experimentation and self-expression without restraint, the color standards company trumpeted in a news release.
“The last few years were transformative in many ways in terms of people’s sense of self, and the way well-being, priorities, and identity are being thought about,” Laurie Pressman, Pantone Color Institute’s vice president, said in a statement. “As a result, space has been created where we are free to explore and be accepted for exactly who we feel we are, whether it be in a cybernetic universe, a conventional space, or a magical blend of both.”
It works as a versatile accent. Pantone suggests pairing it with bright, basic colors to pop, like Cayenne and Sun Orange (below, top), or to make a statement against neutrals like Gray Sand and Pale Khaki (middle). Viva Magenta’s color family goes from Blushing Rose on one end to the red-brown Roasted Russet on the other (bottom).
To bring Viva Magenta to life, Pantone partnered with ARTECHOUSE, an immersive art experience production company, to build a $1 million Magentaverse experience open in Miami Beach through Thursday. Other launch partners include Motorola, which is putting out a special edition Viva Magenta Edge 30 Fusion phone, and Cariuma, a shoe brand. Promotional images for the color were made using Midjourney, an A.I. tool that created images that blurred the lines between natural and technological.
Viva Magenta is more red than other magentas, like T-Mobile’s. The telecommunications company called their shade “New Magenta” in an April Fool’s joke this year, unveiling a “new” shade that was the same as the old with mocking self-importance. But Pantone isn’t alone in looking to reds for After Times colors: Benjamin Moore named the coral-red Raspberry Blush its color of 2023, and last year, Dutch fashion brand SuitSupply used a burgundy suit in its scantily clad “The New Normal” campaign that celebrated a post-vaccination makeout session. Maybe there’s something about red that suggests new beginnings.
Soon after the original magenta was patented and renamed, it was used to unlock new colors. Chemists in the 1860s found it could be turned into dyes for Aniline Blue, Methyl Violet, and Perkin Green. It’s a hopeful omen for the new year.
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