A series of articles featuring personal observations about color and design.
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In the evenings I get out from behind my computer for an hour or so before heading off to bed. Initially this time was spent wearing out a high-energy puppy with fun and games. In the past couple of years she's taken to zoning out on the couch, so I've started spending that time watching a home improvement or cooking show. A couple of weeks ago during a commercial break while watching the Holiday Baking Championship (yum!) I noticed that three commercials in a row heavily featured a particular color - blue-green. The shades ranged from bright turquoise to a darker teal, but the uniformity across three completely unrelated ads was striking. I mentioned it to my daughter, who has a degree in graphic design; she was duly unimpressed with my observation and went back to tapping away on her iPad. I wondered aloud if turquoise had been named color of the year. ::: crickets :::
Curious, the next morning I did a search for "2021 color of the year" and felt quite vindicated seeing that Benjamin Moore's 2021 color of the year is Aegean Teal, while Glidden named Aqua Fiesta. I searched in vain for Pantone's 2021 Color of the Year, knowing that Pantone is the authority of color in the world of design.
(Left to right): Aegean Teal, Aqua Fiesta, Pantone previous turquoise COTY, Illuminating, Ultimate Gray
A couple of days later (Dec 10 2020) Pantone's color(s) of the year were announced: Ultimate Gray (17-5014) and Illuminating (13-0647), which is bright, cheerful yellow. I was surprised! Then I looked back at Pantone's COTY for the past 20 years and discovered they've named turquoise, or a shade thereof, their color of the year three times: 2003's Aqua Sky (14-4811), 2005's Blue Turquoise (15-5217) and 2010's Turquoise (15-5519).
I was also struck by what appeared to be a lack of diversity in the Pantone COTY for the past 20 years. Along with turquoise, there are several shades of purple and orange, with a fair sprinkling of reds, blues, and greens. What was decidedly lacking was ... yellow! (2009's yellow-orange Mimosa is the closest.)
Pantone Colors of the Year 2000-2021
Shades of yellow have appeared in almost every Spring-Summer Fashion Trend Report over the years, but perhaps the lack of yellow in Pantone's COTY - not to mention the overall dreariness of the year 2020 (understatement!) - gave it the boost it needed to bring it to the top for 2021.
I've already been playing with plaid patterns using colors from Pantone's Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2021 palettes in common color theory harmonies - but that is an article for another day.
December 12, 2020
Next article: Pantone Color Trends: Spring 2022, NY Fashion Week »
