Pantone strikes a cheerful note with its 2021 colour of the year

It’s been about taking the good with the bad this year, the rough with the smooth, and the light with the dark. So it is with Pantone’s ‘colour of the year’ for 2021 – a double billing of Ultimate Gray and Illuminating Yellow.

Leatrice Eiseman, executive director at The Pantone Color Institute, called the combination: ‘A message of positivity supported by fortitude. Practical and rock solid, but at the same time warming and optimistic.’

The message is clear: Stay strong, stay hopeful.

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This is only the second time that Pantone has chosen two colours, after Rose Quartz and Serenity for 2016, a pink and blue designed to symbolise the growing movement of gender fluidity and social change.

The brand’s selections this year are intended to reflect a global movement of people looking for ways to ‘fortify themselves with energy, clarity and hope to overcome continuing uncertainty.’

The pairing conjures the warmth of solar rays on weathered pebbles. At least it wasn’t Jet Black.