Pantone picks Color of the Year for 2021

Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore have already had their say, and now…

Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore have already had their say, and now…

And The Wendt Agency has some strong opinions about it

OK, let’s get this out of the way right up front – there are some of us here at The Wendt Agency who think Pantone is cheating with their 2021 Color of the Year since it isn’t A color, it’s TWO colors. Come on – the title clearly says color, singular.

However, we are aware that Pantone doesn’t really care what we think and they have been choosing a Color of the Year for a long time now. So, let’s all take a look at their picks – Pantone 17-5104 Ultimate Gray and Pantone 13-0647 Illuminating. Basically, gray and yellow.

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The official company news release calls this combo “A marriage of color conveying a message of strength and hopefulness that is both enduring and uplifting.” Which – maybe? But that isn’t really the way the Wendt team sees it, because the negative reviews far outweigh the positive ones:

  • I’m digging it because of the perfect balance of the realism and softness of the gray with the brightness and hope of the yellow.
  • Love the gray, but unless you are a daffodil or a bumblebee, stay away from yellow; it’s the devil’s playground.
  • A message of strength? I guess I might put those colors in a home gym if I had one…
  • I hate the yellow and gray color combo – this was a big trend in design not that long ago and yellow is such a cop-out sunshine color. Stop ruining beautiful shades of gray with yellow!
  • Those are basically the colors of a Swiffer duster before and after dusting the entire house!

Still, as Business Insider reminds us, these Pantone picks do have a lot of influence and so, love them or loathe them, we will probably all be seeing a lot of them in 2021. You can get all the analysis here:

https://www.businessinsider.com/pantone-color-of-the-year-2021-consumer-products-impact-2020-12

This is probably a wrap on the picks for Color of 2021, and we’ve gone from Sherwin-Williams’ Urbane Bronze to Benjamin Moore’s Aegean Teal to Pantone’s Ultimate Gray and Illuminating duo. Not a lot of consistency across the choices, but that should mean there is truly a color for everyone in 2021!

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