Pantone Viva Magenta 18-1750
An unconventional shade for an unconventional time
Welcome To The Magentaverse
Pantone’s Colour of The Year, Viva Magenta 18-1750, vibrates with vim and vigor. It is a shade rooted in nature descending from the red family and expressive of a new signal of strength. Viva Magenta is brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative.
“In this age of technology, we look to draw inspiration from nature and what is real. PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta descends from the red family, and is inspired by the red of cochineal, one of the most precious dyes belonging to the natural dye family as well as one of the strongest and brightest the world has known.
Rooted in the primordial, PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta reconnects us to original matter. Invoking the forces of nature, PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength”
Latrice Eiseman Executive Director, Pantone Color Institute
How Colour of the Year is Chosen
How Does Pantone Pick the Colour of the Year? An Interview with Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute
Laurie, talk about why and how this process began. When did Pantone Colour of the Year start?
The Pantone Colour Institute originally created the Pantone Colour of the Year educational program in 1999 to engage the design community and colour enthusiasts around the world in a conversation around colour. We wanted to draw attention to the relationship between culture and colour. We wanted to highlight to our audience how what is taking place in our global culture is expressed and reflected through the language of colour. This thought process rings just as true today just as it did back in 1999. That’s one of the major reasons why, each year, so many around the world look forward to our Pantone Colour of the Year announcement.
Who decides Pantone Colour of the Year?
To arrive at the selection each year, this global team of colour experts at the Pantone Colour Institute comb the world looking for new colour influences. This can include the entertainment industry and films in production, traveling art collections and new artists, fashion, all areas of design, aspirational travel destinations, new lifestyles, playstyles or enjoyable escapes as well as socio-economic conditions. Influences may also stem from new technologies, materials, textures and effects that impact colour, relevant social media platforms and even upcoming sporting events that capture worldwide attention.
Anything and everything taking place in our culture during the year can influence our Pantone Color of the Year selections for the upcoming year with each source carrying a different weight from year to year, depending on what is taking place in our culture at that time. For example, if you look back to 15 years ago, technology would have played an infinitesimal role. Today that is no longer the case. Gaming, social media, AR and physical design itself are all influenced by our technology and the colors we can access in the digital environment.
How does the selection process work? How does Pantone decide the Color of the Year every year?
The Pantone Color of the Year selection process entails thoughtful consideration and trend analysis. It is a culmination of the macro-level color trend forecasting and research that the global team involved with the Pantone Color Institute conducts year-round that informs this selection, as well as the colors that get included into our color trend forecasting products.
We approach our color selection in a very pure way. No one on our global team comes to any Pantone Color of the Year discussion with a commercial agenda or inserts their personal preferences. Instead, we each approach our Pantone Color of the Year color selection in a very pure way. As we like to say, “we love all of our colors equally.”
There’s also a misconception that we gather a bunch of colour influencers in a room one day and emerge with the decision. Instead, as many of our Pantone Colour Institute team members own their own design studios, contribute to key influential global trend forecasts, work with clients prescribing colour choices for product or brand visual identity, and even teach classes on colour, their daily conversations are rooted in colour and design, including material and surface finish. As a result, conversations relating to our Pantone Colour of the Year selection do not take place in one isolated meeting at a specific time of year. It is one long, continuously flowing conversation among a group of color-attuned people.
Our Pantone Color Institute team members come from a wide range of design, cultural and geographical backgrounds. The commonality that brings them together is their expertise in color and design, and their ability to see the world through the lens of color. That’s why I liken them to being color anthropologists. They have this intuitive ability to connect all that is taking place in the world and translate it into the language of color.
What’s especially fascinating to me about the Pantone Colour of the Year selection process is that although our Pantone Colour Institute members reside in disparate locations and are involved in differing areas of design, we are always able to come to a consensus. Sure, there are different perspectives that come up and we carefully look at them all, but because the Pantone Colour of the Year reflects what is taking place in our global culture at that moment in time, many of our observations are quite similar. We discuss our color psychology and color trend research looking to connect the mood of the global zeitgeist with the corresponding color family. From there, we drill down further to identify the exact right shade. And as we did for the first time for our Pantone Colour of the Year selection in 2022, PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri, if we do not have the exact right color to convey the message, we will create it.
The name of the color also needs to help tell the story. Names immediately conjure up an image and a feeling. We want to make sure that the name of our Pantone Colour of the Year resonates and can easily and intuitively convey the message we are looking to send.
What does the selection of the Pantone Colour of the Year represent?
The colour we select to be our Pantone Colour of the Year is bigger than one region or one sector of design. It is a colour we see crossing all areas of design; a colour that serves as an expression of a mood and an attitude on the part of the consumers, a colour that will resonate around the world, a colour that reflects what people are looking for, a colour that can hope to answer what they feel they need.
That’s the difference between a more short-lived fad and a lifestyle trend. Pantone Colour of the Year is reflective of a lifestyle trend. It’s about what’s happening in the zeitgeist at a macro level. It's not going to represent a singular trend that you can only find in the US or only find in Asia. It’s global.
It is critical that we make sure that the colour really reflects what's taking place in the global culture at that moment in time. Pantone Colour of the Year isn’t about what the colour is going to represent three years from now, or what it represented last year. It is about what we see for the immediate upcoming year.
The emotional aspect of colour is also a large aspect of our decision making. We want to ensure that the colours we select reflect what is taking place in our global culture at a specific moment in time. With color and context so intertwined, there really are reasons why a color family or individual color comes into prominence when it does. For the most part, the popularity of a color is symbolic of the age we live in. So, while each year is unique, and we look at each year separately, we also do look back to where we have been since we began this program in 1999.
Why does Pantone pick the Colour of the Year? In other words, what makes the Pantone Colour Institute the global authority on colour?
Pantone is in the business of colour. Since 1963, Pantone has provided colour solutions for all our client’s colour needs. Today Pantone’s colour language is used by designers worldwide to access colour trends, communicate colour choices, and control consistency of colour across every imaginable surface, texture, material, and finish.
Founded in 1985, the Pantone Color Institute educates, inspires, and promotes fluency in the language of color. Executive Director Leatrice Eiseman, who helped to start the Pantone Color Institute, has a background in color, design and psychology. The ongoing color preference study research which she conducts through the Pantone Color Institute serves as the foundation for who we are and all that we do.
Why is Pantone Color of the Year important? When the program is successful, what happens to the world?
It’s important to remember that the goal of the program isn’t to push a certain colour, although we do see that colours named as Pantone Colour of the Year increase in popularity. After being integrated into the cultural mindset, they sometimes become even more influential the following year. The goal of the program is to help companies and consumers better understand the power color can have. We want to teach them how to leverage color’s power and expressiveness to influence perception — whether it be to create a more successful design strategy that will increase consumer engagement, or to use it to better showcase your own personal identity.
For companies, Pantone Colour of the Year demonstrates that colour is a major part of a consumer’s decision to buy something or not. For consumers, it makes them conscious of the impression they can make through color. On any given day, the colors you choose to wear are affected by your mood and your desire for how you want others to perceive you. Colour is an important part of the message you send to the world.
Colour is the most important powerful communication tool. It is the first thing we see and the first thing we connect to. It is a visual language we all understand, one whose message crosses genders, generations, and geographies. Learning more about the unique meanings particular colors give voice to helps us to be a more expressive, closely connected society, one that provides people with a more holistic understanding of their peers and communities alike. As a globally recognized visual language, colour can say what words cannot.
Designer Tools
Colour Inspiration On Demand
Viva Magenta in Beauty and Hair
Viva Magenta in Home Décor and Interior Design
