Me & Pantone Color of the Year

Have you heard about next year’s color of the year? Pantone announced Mocha Mousse for 2025. It is a wonderful color. But before we get into all that, a few words on what Pantone is. Pantone is a company that develops colors in a standardized format so that other businesses and designers are able to communicate their ideas consistently.

One of the many outputs Pantone has is “Color of the Year.” They collect loads of information on what’s happening around the world, what is the general mood, the “zeitgeist” so to speak. Then they come up with a color that represents this mood and announce it near the end of the current year for the following year. Then we as consumers may start seeing that color used in areas such as fashion, interior design, and all levels of consumer goods.

What I love about “Color of the Year” is the tying together of color psychology (what color makes us feel) with our collective zeitgeist; how the specific color is presented as what is needed at that time. The majority of the color choices make sense if you reflect on the present year and look at the color chosen for the next year. Let’s look at some examples from the past.

• 2009, Mimosa (warm yellow) was the color of the year to give us hope and comfort as the 2008 Great Recession hit.
  
• 2010, Turquoise as color of the year was to give us an escape from the global turmoil.
  
• 2012, Tangerine Tango (reddish orange) to refresh our energy to move forward; year of Arab Spring, riots, Fukushima meltdown.
  
• 2017, Greenery (yellow-green) was to help us turn to nature and new beginnings as the world devolved in social and political turmoil: Brexit, Trump elected, Syria, N. Korea, Russia.
  
• 2018, Ultra Violet (blue purple) was pointing us to the future, expanding our imaginations and creativity. This fits with the advent of AI (artificial intelligence).
  
• 2019, Living Coral (orange with a gold undertone) represented the connections we wanted between each other and across society as a whole; more playfulness as our world was becoming more fragmented.
  
• 2020, Classic Blue (navy) came in to give us a feeling of stability, peace, and serenity as the world was dealing with immigrants, Amazon fires, nationalism, protests.
  
• 2021, Ultimate Gray (medium gray) & Illuminating (bright yellow). 2 colors to help us as we faced the Covid crisis and George Floyd killing. The gray was to support inner strength and the yellow was to encourage optimism.
  
• 2022, Veri Peri, (bold periwinkle) representing newness as our lives became a mix of physical and digital interactions as continued fallout of Covid.
  
• 2023, Viva Magenta, (red with blue undertones) very bold color but based in nature to bring us a sense of fearlessness, joy, and optimism during this time of Roe v. Wade turned over, Russia invaded Ukraine, and food insecurity increased.
  
• 2025, Mocha Mousse, (soft brown) which moves you to wrap yourself in lusciousness and comfort while creating connections to the natural world; linking the modern times with the enduring allure of fine craftsmanship. This is in reaction to the chaos of the time with increased turmoil, use of artificial intelligence, and plastics pollution.

As you can see, the colors are in response to what is happening in the world. For times of trouble and turmoil one sees more of the colors selected for comfort, stability, strength, optimism. For better times one sees brighter, energizing colors being presented. Hopefully this gives you some insight in how colors impact us emotionally and how we as individuals may use colors to bring about the emotions we desire.

To learn so much more about colors, please visit pantone.com.