Brave New Color

PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri is the Color of 2022

Pantone has revealed 17-3938 Very Peri as the Color of the Year for 2022. Very Peri is a brave new color whose “presence encourages personal inventiveness and creativity". Hailing from the Blue family but with violet red undertones, this color rekindles gratitude for some of the qualities that blue represents while at the same time providing a new perspective that places the future ahead in a new light.

Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute, shares that creating a new color for the first time in the history of the institute’s color program reflects the global innovation and transformation taking place. The chosen color of the year “reflects what is taking place in our global culture, expressing what people are looking for that color can hope to answer. As society continues to recognize color as a critical form of communication, and a way to express and affect ideas and emotions and engage and connect, the complexity of this new red violet infused blue hue highlights the expansive possibilities that lay before us.” Very Peri is indeed a symbol of the “global zeitgeist of the moment and the transition we are going through”. This new color couldn't be any more perfect for us who are rising from very interesting times marked by intense periods of isolation and crisis. We are all now slowly but surely shifting our gears (physically, mentally, economically, and politically) and these little transformations allow us to stretch the limits of reality, including coming up with new color possibilities!

With the selection of this dynamic periwinkle blue color (with violet red undertones) as color of the year, it seems like Pantone considers 2022 as a dynamic year of restless creativity. According to the color institute, Very Peri’s selection was also a response to a rising sector of the digital sphere where hues such as this one can be seen with some degree of frequency. Its statement mentioned the “metaverse”, a phrase popularized by Facebook and other tech pages and companies, referrring to a world in which the boundaries between digital and physical have fully imploded. Considering this, as well as the trends in gaming and the burgeoning artistic community in the digital space, Very Peri encourages creativity in modern life where color trends in the digital world are being manifested in the physical world and vice versa. Here’s a toast to a creative new year!