Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2023 has been announced – Viva Magenta 18-750. Started in 1999 to encourage dialogue around the vernacular of color within the global design community, Pantone has become a recognized leader and go-to source for color trend insights across industries.
How is the color of the year selected? The decision process involves a global search for emerging trends ranging from fashion and art to manufacturing and new technology.
Rather than a one-day committee consensus, as many assume, Pantone builds a collaborative team of color experts from a diverse pool of design and ethnic backgrounds. The result is a yearlong, evolving discussion of color which culminates in a referendum establishing the reigning shade for the coming year.
This year’s shade – Viva Magenta – was chosen to promote a feeling of empowerment, optimism, and joyous self-expression.
An Unconventional Shade for an Unconventional Time
According to the Pantone Institute:
“Pantone’s Color of The Year, Viva Magenta 18-750, vibrates with vim and vigor. It is a shade rooted in nature descending from the red family and expressive of a new signal of strength. Viva Magenta is brave and fearless, a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative.
As we balance our digital and physical lives, we continue to grow our appreciation for the natural world. The Color of the Year 2023 acknowledges our gravitational pull towards natural colors as movements swell around climate change, sustainability, and land protection.
The Color of the Year 2023 merges the richness, warmth, and strength of natural matters with the rich, open horizons of the digital world. The result is a shade of red that expands our horizons of authenticity. The metaverse creates new opportunities for us to express ourselves, and the raw fortitude of Viva Magenta inspires us to do so with confidence and bravery.”
A History of Magenta
Magenta is critical to creating every other color we see in print. Although uncommon alone, magenta is necessary for half-tone production and the creation of all other pigments and swatches we use in the print world today. In fact, the Four-Color Printing Process is comprised of magenta, cyan, yellow, and black. This process is the most widely used method for printing full-color images.
Made of equal parts red and blue, magenta’s historical roots go back well before the color printing process itself. What started as a textile dye of the garments of the rich now adorns the logos of technology and service companies and the walls of Taco Bells everywhere.
Magenta doesn’t have its own wavelength on the visible spectrum. Whenever we see it in the real world, our brains combine equal parts red and blue light.
Also known as fuchsia, the magenta dye was discovered around the Italian town of Magenta, which was the site of a famous battle in the mid-19th century. From then on, it would become a widely popular color for garments and a pigment used by painters of the impressionist movement. Magenta is an essential color within the CMKY halftone printing process. It would become crucial to create vibrant color images after the dye’s discovery.
From cell phones to tacos and pharmaceuticals to technology, magenta has made its mark. Being equal parts red and blue, it can exhibit properties of both colors. It can be warm and vibrant, like red, or subtle and calming as blue.
Its existence is everywhere in the natural and material world and yet non-existent within the light spectrum. Consequently, it is both memorable and iconic (picture Taco Bell or T-Mobile) and as common as the upholstery of the dentist waiting room chairs.
Pantone’s selection for 2023 is as mysterious as the color itself. Full of rich history and photogenic science.
Gate 39 Media’s design team is always on the lookout for breaking trends and color usage that affect consumer psychology and user experience in web development and design for financial services and agribusinesses.
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About the Author: Nick Landsberger
As Lead Designer at Gate 39, Nick strives to bring great ideas to life through creative digital design. Combining his talent for branding and a background in software, Nick leverages his experience use design to solve problems. His passion for the creative process and strong technical skills result in powerful and aesthetically pleasing solutions customized for clients.
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