Colour me magenta!

Pantone has announced its colour of the year for 2023: Viva Magenta. Described on the Pantone website as a colour that

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, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative.

Pantone is a US based company best known for its colour-matching system, PMS (Pantone Matching System) that helps precisely describe a specific colour for real world applications, in a similar way that the RGB codes describe a specific colour for web applications. 

For instance, if you were designing a handbag and you wanted it to be dyed Viva Magenta, you’d order the tint colour, PMS 18-750. If you provide that code to all your manufacturers it will ensure all the handbags produced will be exactly the same colour. 

The Pantone Colour of the Year announcements began in 2000 as a way of engaging designers, colourists and the general public in discussions about colour and culture. A global team of colour experts at the Pantone Colour Institute selects the new colour after observing trends in the arts, fashion, society, the zeitgeist. 

They consider what colour best expresses the mood of the times and speak to the immediate future of design and creativity. 

There is nothing official about the Colour of the Year, that is, there is no obligation or privilege attached to it. Rather, it is aspirational, a guide for creators and a way of distilling a cultural milieu and timeline into a single hue. 

Viva Magenta is the new Very Peri (last year’s Pantone Colour of the Year).