Very Peri is the answer. It's a shade of blue with violet-red undertones. But there's more to colour than meets the eye...
ADVERTISEMENTAccording to celebrated Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, “colours are the mother tongue of the subconscious."
A staple element of design, colours evoke emotions, states of mind, and are a powerful marketing tool to frame the mood of the viewer. So what is the colour that best represents 2022?
According to Pantone, who have provided the industry standard for colour in design since the early 1960s, Very Peri is "a symbol of the global zeitgeist of the moment and the transition we are going through... and illustrates the fusion of modern life and how color trends in the digital world are being manifested in the physical world and vice versa."
Sunlight and prisms were the catalyst for the beginnings of colour theory and awareness in the 1660s. Isaac Newton, when he wasn't being concussed in an orchard, was the first to experiment with the spectrum, concluding that colours are different wavelengths of light. At the beginning of the 18th Century, Newton reinvented the wheel with the Colour Wheel.
Two hundred years later Switzerland's Carl Jung explored colour and how it affects the mind. Initially designed for psychiatric therapy, this understanding of personality types took on huge significance commercially, particularly with advertising and marketing.
Red is often used to express importance or a sense of urgency. Yellow is associated with creativity and fun. Blue, the part of the spectrum that houses 2022's Very Peri, is a calming set of colours that also inspires qualities of dependability and trust.
How is the colour decided?
The selection process for colour of the year is the result of trend analysis. Pantone say that their color experts comb the world looking for new colour influences.
"These can include the entertainment industry and films in production, traveling art collections and new artists, fashion, all areas of design, popular travel destinations, as well as new lifestyles, playstyles, and socio-economic conditions. Influences may also stem from new technologies, materials, textures, and effects that impact color, relevant social media platforms and even upcoming sporting events that capture worldwide attention," they say.
In 2021, it was a shared honour between 'Ultimate Gray' and a yellow tone they called 'Illuminating'.
