Pantone's Color of the Year is an annual announcement that has gained global attention to set trends for the year ahead and influences several industries including marketing, graphic and industrial design, fashion, and home furnishings. Since 1999, the Pantone Color Institute has been selecting a color that reflects cultural and social trends from the entertainment industry to travel destinations, new technologies and social media platforms, materials, textures, and even worldwide cultural and sporting events. 

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Pantone Color Institute & Color Matching System 

The Pantone Color Matching System is widely recognized and relied upon in the industry as a standard for achieving precise color matching, ensuring that colors look consistent regardless of where or how they are produced. The system was developed in 1963 to solve the problem of complicated color matching in the printing industry. Since then, designers, printers, and paint, textile, and plastic manufacturers use Pantone color books to ensure accurate color representation. The guides include swatches of colors cataloged with unique alphanumeric codes printed on paper, and, through a membership, can be added digitally into design programs such as Adobe Illustrator.

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Pantone’s Color of the Year

Last December, Pantone announced that the color of the year for 2023 was PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta. In its official announcement, Viva Magenta is described as brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative. It is a color that is audacious, full of wit, and inclusive of all. 

The announcement of the 2024 color dropped today, December 7, 2023. PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz is the official color of the new year, bringing a feeling of kindness and tenderness, communicating a message of caring and sharing, community and collaboration according to the Institute. In its press release, Pantone’s executive director, Leatrice Eiseman, asserted: “Peach Fuzz captures our desire to nurture ourselves and others.”

Our creative team is exploring how Peach Fuzz will affect marketing, advertising, and design.
Prior to the announcement, we considered how 2024 predictions in the design world might inspire the color of the year, which will likely be focused on sustainability and skew functional and minimalistic. We also thought it could continue trending to bold, vibrant color palettes. However, it seems instead that the Institute picked the color to evoke a warm and tactile experience, which translates perfectly to fashion, textiles and packaging, and cosmetics.

The past years’ Pantone colors have been Viva Magenta 2023, Very Peri(winkle) 2022, Ultimate Gray 2021, Illuminating (yellow) 2021 (yes, there were two announced in 2021 after a distressing 2020), Classic Blue 2020, and Living Coral 2019. 2018’s color was Ultra Violet, which we totally vibed with.

Now that this year’s color has been announced, we consider how it could be used within a brand’s color palette. Peach Fuzz would shine alongside a rich, warm chocolate brown, a cool slate gray, and a crisp ice blue. Here’s a look at some of our favorite color palettes we’ve created for our clients. Through strategic and creative exploration, we build brand palettes to represent each company’s values and aspirations, who they are, and what they do.

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Client Color Palettes That Inspire Us

Cassandra Smalley Wealth Management

After years of working for large wealth management firms, Cassandra Smalley started her own firm with a bold mission to empower women to define and use their voices at the financial table. Her color palette is cool, refined, and grounding to appeal to a female audience looking for secure futures for themselves and their families.

Inspired by the calming effect of the sea, her colors are Caribbe Blue, Coral Sand, Sea Foam, Deep Wave, Midnight Sky and Rich Black. Blues represent confidence, security, and trust, and greens represent balance, stability, and wealth.

Drink Katy's 

Drink Katy’s mission is to offer high quality, all-natural teas with empowering affirmations to the consumers to love themselves and the planet. We developed their vibrant and joyful color palette to reach a young, health conscious, female demographic. 

The palette is one of our most vast, with a whopping nine colors named after tea flavors and trends. The founder aspired to be like hip brands with raving fans like Lilly Pulitzer, Kate Spade, and Suja Organic, so we created a wide, eye-catching palette to be used in textures and patterns throughout the products and packaging.

Their colors are: Par-Tea Pink, Rosé, Iced, Sun N’ Fun, Low Key Lime, Yas Green, Berrylicious, Earl Grey, and Shade.

Seaside Dermatology

Seaside Dermatology is a woman-founded-and-run business that provides comprehensive and personalized dermatology experiences located along the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Their brand colors were inspired by the name and location, with colors aptly named Indigo, Sea, Wave, Glow, and Sunset. They emulate Florida sunsets by the Gulf, and represent the warm, compassionate care and glowing skin that patients receive after their experience with Dr. Chelsea Duggan and her team.

Pyper, Inc.

Our own color palette reflects our core values and our mission to accelerate growth for our clients with brilliant marketing solutions. It is sophisticated, fresh, and a bit playful because we like to think outside the box.

Del Mar: Means “of the sea” – we love our location by the water.

Blush: We are passionate and fresh. Pink is a modern and caring color, we embody this to each other and our clients.

Prince: Our purple, inspired by the bold artist himself. 

Cocoa: We love chocolate, and chocolate pairs well with champagne!

What was created for our rebrand in 2018 has evolved over time, extending to signage to social to swag bags. To this day, we are always looking for ways to expand our brand with new photography and brand assets to come in 2024. But our color palette will always remain true! 

Conclusion 

Ultimately, a brand's choice of colors should align with its identity, values, and the emotions it aims to evoke in its audience. We have expanded upon how colors evoke specific emotions and perceptions in our The Psychology of Color blog post if you’d like to read more. We can’t wait to see how we can utilize colors like Peach Fuzz in our branding and design this year.

Does your brand’s color palette accurately personify your brand or is it time for a refresh? Give us a call and let us help you build or rebuild your brand identity!