Three Takes on the Color of the Year

We’ve been hearing quite a bit about the Color of the Year in the last couple of weeks and while there is not one official organization that bestows this honor on a single hue several well recognized companies that are involved with color each name and create a lot of buzz around a ‘Color of the Year’ each December.

First out of the gate this year was ICI with their Color of the Year: ‘Icy Blue’.  I love the clean, airy freshness that this color has.  To me this colors feels like a breath of fresh air and opens my mind once again to optimistic “the sky is the limit” thinking.

Next we heard from Pantone and their Color of the Year: ‘Turquoise’ a warmer take on blue.  While the color on the fabric sample sent with their press release seemed to be a rather insipid hue I do think the color appears to be much more interesting in the graphic images of their supporting images.

Of course it is hard to go wrong with me when it comes to this hue.  Anyone that knows me well knows that blue-green is a color that I enjoy in all of its many hues, tints, tones and shades.   Even my signature paint color ‘H2-Ahh!’ in Ellen Kennon’s Full Spectrum line is a complex neutral that is probably often described as bluish, greenish, gray.

Turquoise evokes all of the positive feelings associate with the healing powers and relaxing qualities of water.  Just the prescription for the frazzled nerves and unsettled emotions many have experience it the last year or two.

Now today Global Color Research released Verdigris as their first Color of the Year.  This hue is very close to Pantone’s Turquoise and in the same palette there is a blue that is strikingly similar to ICI’s Icy Blue plus four additional colors.

While it might surprise you that these organizations would come up with similar hues as their Color of the Year it makes perfect sense to those of us involved in color forecasting.  For example twice a year I participate in the color forecasting process with the Color Marketing Group and while each of the color professionals involved does their own independent research we often arrive at the meeting with almost identical colors.

No matter how many times this happens I still find it both amazing and reasuring.  Amazing because when each person picks just a half dozen colors to talk about out of all of the millions of choices the possibility that they will choose the same color seems quite improbable doesn’t it?

At the same time it is reassuring to have my own choices validated and to know that while color trend predicting is not an exact science that when global trends are distilled down to colors there is a synergy to our thought process.

It is for this reason that as you start to look around at the color trends from many companies you’ll see similar colors.  For example just take a look at The Hottest Paint Colors gathered by Christine Pittel for House Beautiful.  Many of the major paint brands have submitted their choice of a hot color for 2010.  Each paint color is different but as you look at them as a group you can see how similar they are to the colors above.

Do you have your own favorite ‘Color of the Year’?  Leave a comment and let me know.

You might also like to see some of our previous posts on the Color of the Year:

Trend Tuesday: ICI’s Color of the Year Icy Blue is Icy Hot

Pantone 2010 Color of the Year: Turquoise.