Meet Pantone's 2021 Colors of the Year
For the second time ever, Pantone selected two colors for its annual Color of the Year
Pantone announced two colors for its annual Color of the Year this week: Ultimate Gray and a bright, cheerful yellow, dubbed Illuminating.
The colors were selected by the Pantone Color Institute, Pantone’s business unit. Forecasters make their annual predictions based on color influences from sources like the entertainment industry, films in production, new artists, the fashion industry, visual design trends, and even events in the news, like new technologies, social media platforms, and upcoming global sporting events, according to the company.
Pantone had actually settled on Illuminating as 2021’s Color of the Year months ago, but it didn’t feel right until the group brought in a gray, balancing out the optimism of the yellow with a color that would otherwise be too dull or gloomy on its own, Pantone Color Institute vice president Laurie Pressman told Fast Company.
The two colors were chosen to represent a sense of resilience and hope. “The union of an enduring Ultimate Gray with the vibrant yellow Illuminating expresses a message of positivity supported by fortitude,” Pantone Color Institute’s executive director Leatrice Eiseman said in a statement.
Color forecasts can sometimes sound like the design version of a horoscope. Pantone’s 2020 color, Classic Blue, for example, was chosen because it was a dependable color “as we cross the threshold into a new era.”
For 2016, the only other time Pantone chose two colors in a single year, the company explained its selections of Rose Quartz and Serenity in terms of balance. “As consumers seek mindfulness and well-being as an antidote to modern-day stresses, welcoming colors that psychologically fulfill our yearning for reassurance and security are becoming more prominent,” Pantone said at the time.
Sure, it reads like a fortune cookie fortune, but I think we really do look to color as a form of visual therapy. We gravitate to colors that bring us joy or make a statement about who we want to be, whether it’s through our phone cases, face masks, clothing, wall art, or throw pillows. In our rapidly changing, modern age, we often want colors that express things like dependability, security, balance, and positivity.
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Pantone’s explanation for picking the bright Illuminating to convey hope and optimism is similar to what Biden senior creative advisor Robyn Kanner told me about the Biden campaign’s embrace of warm, colorful gradients. And the addition of Ultimate Gray echoes what Spotify said about designing their #2020Wrapped campaign to reflect themes like resilience and “beauty within the chaos,” with visuals like colors both dark and light.
“No one color could get across the meaning of the moment,” Pressman, the color institute vice president, told the New York Times.
As you may have assumed, I’m quite fond of the color yellow ( I started rocking a yellow-and-gray avatar all the way back in June 😎). I named this newsletter after the color in large part because it’s bright and happy, and because it’s an accent to the American color palette. It’s the only primary color we haven’t politicized yet. It’s the color of sunshine and smiley faces. After the year we’ve had, we could also use a little yellow.
Together, Illuminating and Ultimate Gray are cautiously optimistic, which sums up how many of us feel about the year to come. The end of the pandemic appears to be in sight, for example — shoutout to Margaret Keenan, the 90-year-old British woman who became the first person in the world to receive a tested and approved Covid-19 vaccine — but we know the virus doesn’t disappear just because the calendar flips to January 1. Though there are still gray skies ahead, sunny days will come again. It’s the vibe of our times. 💛🌫️