By Janeen McCrae in Newsletter — 26 Dec 2022

The Pantone Color of the Year (Revised) is...

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With a flood of positivity and goo-goo-gah-gah feelings as we coo the metaphorical human consciousness baby, we are so very chuffed to announce that Pantone’s Color of the Year (Revised), is YOU!

*Toots ceremonial trumpet*

Known by many names—Precious Love, Succulent Serenity, Voluminous Symphony, and Rockin’ Mood Ring—YOU, 01-2897, throw a relentless blanket of energy, hope, empathy, transcendent radiant glory, and sublime majesty upon the willing laps of us all.

I mean, YOU—what a corker of a color!

Drawing inspiration from the situation at hand, we meet YOU as a simmering sunset on the horizon of life, dabbing delicate light upon the faces of our memory. There, there, says YOU, wiping the heat of incessant rejection from our agitated skin with a cool parental washcloth. With YOU in our midst, the time passes as calmly as a gradient made subtle in a moment of reflection.

Put simply, nothing compares to YOU.

With its shade planted upon the palette of defiance, YOU can shake a fist, kick an arse or two, and storm a far-off castle in a cumulonimbus roll of can-do energy that sets off admiration alarms and makes dogs go ‘rhuh?” Relentless in spirit, this is a color rooted in motion and born to incite movements that spur others to action. YOU will paint the walls of our hearts with the biggest and softest of brushes so that we may rise as a phoenix fresh from the negativity ashes to soar above it all.

Heck-Yeah! Nothing stops YOU!

Courage is baked into this color, leaking out the wazoo of YOU to seep beneath the under-doors to our hearts. Expression finds YOU in the stars and with the moon, using words to comfort the sad-sacks, inoculate the bitter against further poisons, and draw good vibes only from the errant atmosphere of anger engulfing the populace.

Look at YOU!

A throbbing, alive-times lover whose spirit is the pandemic infection we all wanted for Christmas, spinning the us and them and they and we into DNA threads to hang upon our life trees as scientific shade baubles.

The color YOU can change the temperature of a room, shucking coats from the shoulders of emotional oysters who got super mad at the TV for no reason, changing the channel to sparkly happy with its hue of joy and tone of triumph. Vibrating with possibility, YOU will absorb all negative light to process in the furnace of understanding before broadcasting a rainbow of pure radiance to show us the coruscating pot of gold we all seek to power our world.

There is nothing YOU can’t do.

A note about YOU from our President:

“In choosing Pantone’s Color of the Year, we saw YOU and just had to recognize the holy-moly nature of what YOU can say and do. We saw YOU on the ground—YOU got back up, vivid and rich with a prism of purpose. We saw YOU fail—YOU turned the brilliance dial to full nuke and shone on even brighter. Brilliant and ballsy, electric and beaming, YOU epitomize all aspects and personality traits of an utterly bangin’ color that’ll set the world ablaze with all daubs of amaze.

In a world filled with ashy greys and bleak realities, swamped in the somber soot of negativity and hate, depressed with the rise of the washed-out hucksters and an ever-evolving class of graduating arseclowns, we reach for the colors that bring harmonic and bold clarity to our seeking souls so as to invigorate our bodies with love, acceptance, laughter, and joy.

This year, we reach for YOU.”

Important Human Name from a Plaque on a Door
Shadow Executive Director, Pantone Color Institute

This week’s amends…

“I will often read passages from my favorite writers to remind myself how some people really just know how to give it up, by which I mean give up their secret dreaming selves, with honesty and artistry. Their example lifts me, emboldens me, when I am feeling depleted and paltry.“

- Sam Lipsyte, from NYT piece “Sam Lipsyte Will Read About Anything From Mall Design to Toenail Clippings”

Via Austin Kleon