{"id":105462,"date":"2024-09-12T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adorama.com\/alc\/?p=105462"},"modified":"2024-12-06T09:34:36","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T14:34:36","slug":"pantone-color-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adorama.com\/alc\/pantone-color-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Photographers Look Forward to the Pantone Color of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every year, the design community gears up and holds their breath while waiting for the official announcement Pantone Color of the Year<\/a>. Some will say, “It’s just a color!”<\/em> Oh, but they don’t get it. It’s a pretty big deal actually!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The singular color of the year holds a crazy amount of influence over the visual and creative world. In fact, it affects everything like fashion, interior design, graphic design, and photography. But why do photographers care so much? Let me explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wait, who is Pantone?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"picture
Photo by Uby Yanes on Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pantone<\/a> is basically like the color police. No, like, actually. They\u2019re a global authority on color, deciding what\u2019s what in the world of color shades. Their power goes back to the 1960s thanks to a guy named Lawrence Herbert. Lawrence just wanted to fix a common problem in the printing industry: color inconsistency. You know, like when you order a batch of business cards, and they come out looking like a sad, washed-out version of what you had in mind? Yeah, that kind of headache.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Herbert rolled up his sleeves and developed the Pantone Matching System (PMS) \u2014 a simple yet genius method to standardize color so that “sunset orange” didn’t end up looking like “burnt toast brown” on someone\u2019s watch. He basically created a dictionary for color, where every shade had its own unique code, like a digital fingerprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This meant that designers, printers, and manufacturers could communicate color more accurately, avoiding those awkward, \u201cWell, it looked different on my screen!\u201d moments. Suddenly, everyone was speaking the same color language, and the design world rejoiced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does Pantone choose Color of the Year?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"pantone
Photo by Christina Rumpf on Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since the year 2000, Pantone has been picking a single color to sum up the mood of the entire planet. This is some serious color strategizing, requiring the heads at Pantone to carefully observe global culture, emotions, and trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The job falls to the Pantone Color Institute, which is like Pantone’s secret brain trust of color experts. These folks are not just sitting around with paint chips \u2014 they\u2019re out there, fingers on the pulse of the world, studying everything from what\u2019s sashaying down the runways at Fashion Week<\/a> to the newest gadget colors coming out of Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it doesn\u2019t stop there! They\u2019re also peeking into political movements<\/a>, checking the vibe of major events, and even seeing what\u2019s trending in travel hot spots<\/a>. They’re looking for patterns, signals, little clues about where the world is headed and what we\u2019re collectively feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"expert
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When they finally choose a single Color of the Year, it’s like they\u2019ve put everything into a single hue. The chosen color becomes a sort of visual shorthand for the year ahead, setting the tone (quite literally) for fashion, interior design, marketing, tech, and every other corner of the creative universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do photographers look forward to the Pantone Color of the Year?<\/h2>\n\n\n
<\/div>
Pantone Color of the Year Beauty Shoot | Inside Fashion and Beauty Photography with Lindsay Adler<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>