And the Pantone Colour of the Year 2026 is…
We’ve recently had brown, peach, magenta, and purple, so we predict a green, orange or yellow today. We say that because of the lack of any one of these over the past eight years. And in this “age of impunity“ Pantone supposedly pick a colour they believe reflects the zeitgeist; so when truth and trust need a boost again, it has to be a Green.
It‘s going to be announced around midday UK time so let’s see if it’s a practical tone and what the blurb is. We tend to cut through all that and focus on the simple decider “can I actually use this colour?“
And the Pantone Colour of the Year 2026 is…
OK. it’s later than we thought, we’ve been busy, but the colour of the year is… Cloud Dancer. No, it’s not blue, nor even grey, we’ve had that in the last few years. It’s actually… white!
We didn’t expect that.
It appears that many other publications, now more than ever reporting on the Pantone Colour of the Year, didn’t expect white either. The headlines include terms like “divisive“ and “surprising“.
But what about Pantone themselves, what superlatives and marketing malarkey did they get up to? Well, Lee Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute (Their spelling, not ours) said in the press releases:
“Cloud Dancer expresses our aspiration for a future free from toxicity and excess,”
So that’s actually not far from our own prediction at 00:53 this morning, but it’s not green is it?
“it invites us into a space where function and feeling are intertwined to build atmospheres of serenity and spaciousness,”
It’s white.
Last year “Moccha Mousse” was a fluffy, Angel Delight brown, and “Peach fuzz”, in 2023, was also “fluffy” with clouds as part of the marketing pack.
There’s not been a colour with weight or clout, so maybe next year will be something of substance.
What are you going to be using this “vanilla, off-white” for in your designs this year?
