Why was the color of the year 2020 blue and that of 2021 gray / yellow? And who decides what kind the color of the year is? Finally, does the color of the year also affect the world of jewelry?
If you are asking yourself questions about the color of the year, here is a very short answer: the color of the year is decided by an American company called Pantone. There is no precise reason why in 2020 blue rather than red or some other nuances are in fashion. The fact is that the idea of assigning a color to the year was a brilliant marketing idea and everyone is adapting. But let’s go step by step.
The color of the year is decided by Pantone, a US company controlled by a company called X-Rite, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Pantone deals with graphics technologies, for example the cataloging of colors and the production of the identification system. It is not enough, in fact, to say red: as anyone who chooses a precious stone to match another knows well, a ruby can have many nuances. And so are the other gems. The same goes for fabrics, painting, or more simply for car paint.
With the aim of cataloging all the nuances, Pantone Matching System has become the international standard for graphics and is also used for color management in industry and chemistry. The parent company, X-Rite, also deals with the classification of colors and photographic material for the world of pharmaceuticals and photogrammetric surveys.
But let’s get to the color of the year. As we were saying, it is essentially a marketing idea designed to make the Pantone brand more known. The color of the year, in fact, has only existed since 2000, when the Pantone Color Institute (which is inside the company) started advertising the Color of the Year. At the moment they are part of the Pantone Color Institute Leatrice Eiseman, who is the Executive Director, David Saha, publisher of Metropolitan Publishing BV, Keith Recher, co-author of Pantone: The Twentieth Century in Color, and founder-editor of Hand / Eye Magazine, Tod Schulman, creative director of the Pantone Color Institute, and Laurie Pressman, of Pantone marketing. In short, everything in the family.
The color is decided, as stated, through a discussion with several experts dealing with different fields. These experts meet in different cities every year and, after two days of debate, choose a color for the following year. The result of the meeting is then published in the Pantone View magazine, used by stylists and designers for their creations to be marketed the following year.
Is the color of the year really that categorical? In 2020, will blue fabrics or blue jewelery be more in demand than others? It’s all to discover. Certainly Pantone, thanks to the space conquered on internet sites and newspapers, will have accumulated another bit of notoriety.
