Pantone colour of the year 2018

Goodbye green and hello purple!

Pantone Colour of the Year

Inventive and imaginative,
Ultra Violet lights the way to what is yet to come.

Announcing the choice for Pantone’s Colour of the Year, Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, said: "We are living in a time that requires inventiveness and imagination. It is this kind of creative inspiration that is indigenous to Pantone 18-3838 Ultra Violet, a blue-based purple that takes our awareness and potential to a higher level. From exploring new technologies and the greater galaxy, to artistic expression and spiritual reflection, intuitive Ultra Violet lights the way to what is yet to come."

Some history of the colour purple

In the meaning of colours, purple and violet represent the future, the imagination and dreams, while spiritually calming the emotions. They inspire and enhance spiritual enlightenment.

The colour purple has been associated with royalty, power and wealth for centuries. Queen Elizabeth I forbade anyone except close members of the royal family to wear it. Purple's elite status stems from the rarity and cost of the dye originally used to produce it. These days, this connotation often translates to premium products or services.

The dye, and the cloth made from it, was so famous that the Greeks called the land of Tyre and Sidon (equivalent to modern Lebanon) Phoinike, "the land of the purple". It required 250,000 shellfish to produce one ounce of Tyrian purple dye, making it very slow and costly to produce. The preferred method was to collect vast piles of shellfish and to allow them to decompose in the sun (classical authors attest to the stench). Production and export of the dye began around 1,200BC and fuelled the Phoenician expansion across the Mediterranean. By the third century BC, Tyrian purple was worth more than gold: a pound of it cost three times the yearly wage of a Roman baker.

When you mix together red and blue, what do you get? Purple. Often associated with luxury, power, wisdom, creativity, and magic, it is the balancing colour between red and blue’s colour psychologies. Whilst red brings intensity and energy to the colour, blue brings relaxation and stability, and together they make purple the perfect balance of the two.

We can introduce the colour purple to your brand

Whilst it doesn’t quite ‘pop’ with attention in the same way yellow or orange does, it stands out because it is not used as often as red and blue. It is rarely used as the primary colour, with it appearing in only 5% of the biggest brands in the US. Implementing as a secondary colour to supplement the main brand appears to be the norm.

It is our belief at Phoenix 10 that colours should be used in a flexible way, allowing brands to convey a range of emotions to suit any given advert or communication. We try to resist defining a brand with a single colour unless absolutely necessary. Our own 'freedom to design' philosophy allows us to use our logo in a range of colours to suit the different seasons and messages we promote. If we need heat our red or orange is called upon. For a cool and relaxing feel our blue is fit for purpose. We too have a purple version up our sleeve!

We would love to work with you on introducing purple to your branding. Whether you want to embrace the colour with a full refresh, or supplement your existing colours with some new life, we can provide all the purple assets you need to use this new colour of the year. Get in touch today to start your exciting project with us.

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