For its 2022 colour of the year Pantone has for the first time ever created a brand new shade: Pantone 17-3938 Very Peri, a vibrant periwinkle blue with violet red undertones.
“It was really important for us to come up with a new color, because we have a very new vision of the world now,” Pantone Color Institute executive director Leatrice Eiseman told CNN.
After the lockdowns of 2021 Pantone introduced us to two colours Ultimate Gray and the sunny yellow Illuminating, to represent the quiet reassurance and resilience in the face of difficult circumstances, as well as optimism for the future. Next year’s Very Peri will symbolise the changes the world is experiencing as we look to move beyond the isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic.
The colour is the “happiest and warmest of all the blue hues,” blending the “faithfulness and constancy of blue with the energy and excitement of red” to deliver an “empowering mix of newness” with a “carefree confidence and a daring curiosity that animates our creative spirit,” said the company in its announcement.
“It’s unusual to refer to blue as ‘happy,’ but when you add that red element to it, that’s exactly what happened,” Eiseman added, speaking to Time. “We felt it was so important to put together a color that encapsulated the feeling of newness.
The rising popularity of gaming, virtual reality and digital devices has also informed the selection process, as our physical and digital worlds have become more and more inseparable. The shade of blue highlights the blue glow of digital devices like our computers and smartphones at a time when human existence is increasingly shifting to the digital realm.