Pantone has decided that 2021 will get two colors of the year. The Pantone Colors of the Year 2021 are Ultimate Gray and Illuminating. This isn’t the first time Pantone has picked a par of colors, they did the same in 2016.
Illuminating is a light yellow and Ultimate Gray is, well, gray. According to Pantone, the colors are not to be interpreted as covering the two extreme moods for 2021, but instead as a unified pair. The pairing is supposed to represent the needed solidarity for what lies ahead for the year.
According to Pantone’s executive director, the color combination is, “practical and rock solid but at the same time warming and optimistic, this combination gives us resilience and hope.”
There are always detractors when the PANTONE Color(s) of the Year are announced, and of course there are some who say picking 2 colors as cheating. Yet there are others who recall the “good old times” of 2016 when Pantone named Rose Quartz and Serenity as colors of the year. We think they contrast and work together harmoniously when side by side.
Over the course of 2020, Pantone brought us Period Red, which some found shocking and even upsetting. Also, there was Ultra Black, which was a collaboration with Nas as representative of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ultimate Gray and Illuminating are gentle colors that we’ll happily accept for 2021. We need it.
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