More Than Just Color
13-1023: It is not a lottery ticket, nor a discount code; it's not my credit card PIN, nor is it an angelic number predicted by a crazed fortune teller. Does Pantone ring a bell?
Irving Penn
And if I mention Peach Fuzz, which color was chosen for the year 2024? Exactly, just like that: it is the serial number of the shade of orange that will become the most famous in 2024. I don’t know about you, but in recent years, I have always heard about Pantone and its declarations on the colors of the year. I have often wondered who decreed this and why. The time has come to answer this question, which comes back unabated every end of the year. Pantone LLC is an American multinational company, founded in 1962 in Carlstadt, New Jersey. Its slogan is “The Color of Ideas,” referring to what it deals with: graphics technologies, color cataloging, and color identification systems. It quickly became important in the chemical sector and throughout the international industry, thanks to its PMS (Pantone Matching System) for color management. This cataloging system then had important outlets in design, fashion, furniture, and all related artistic sectors, including photography. The strength of this technology lies above all in the replicability of color, a concept that seems obvious nowadays but was absolutely not so at least until the sixties. In the past, colors were given by mixtures of artisanal pigments, which meant obtaining results that were always different and never precisely replicable. Having a color unification system, with standards applicable to the whole world, meant the possibility for each of us to choose exactly that color as the final result, and not just a similar one. This is where the importance of Pantone and its activity on a global level comes from.
Alessandro Lucioni / Gorunway.com
The Pantone Color Institute, founded in 1985 within the same company, is responsible for carrying out research and collaborating with brands and customers in order to uncover the color preferences of a target audience, linked to the latter's psychological reactions.
This is how all the colors chosen as "favorites of the year" were born, as is also the case with Peach Fuzz. The Institute's (and company's) method is based on the study of social habits, linked to major changes in life (large-scale global events, such as the pandemic), but also connected to fashion, lifestyle, art, and technology. The Pantone system is not the only one that exists; there are others, too. However, it is the one that has managed to find its way into the hearts of the international public. The color declared the "winner" for 2024 is, as we said, Peach Fuzz: a warm-pastel orange nuance, with a large percentage of white and therefore very bright. The almost tactile sensation it transmits is one of softness, relaxation, hospitality, but at the same time elegance. And it is perhaps the profound need perceived in the lives of all of us now: for softness, light, and warmth, combined with a vision of pleasant and reassuring elegance.
