Pantone reveals 2024 Colour of the Year

Pantone has announced a soft, gentle, pinky-orange tone, named “Peach Fuzz”, as 2024’s Colour of the Year.

The more subdued tone comes in stark contrast to “Viva Magenta”, which held the title for 2023. Pantone explained:

“The color we selected to be our Pantone Color of the Year 2024 needed to express our desire to want to be close to those we love and the joy we get when allowing ourselves to tune into who we are and just savor a moment of quiet time alone.  It needed to be a color whose warm and welcoming embrace conveyed a message of compassion and empathy.”

Pantone Color Institute’s experts decide on the Colour of the Year by taking inspiration from the year’s global culture, art, design, fashion, what’s going on in the economy, popular travel destinations, and more.

Following the announcement, the team from Cheadle Hulme design and branding agency, Dawn Creative, shared their thoughts on Peach Fuzz and the Colour of the Year title.

MD, Dave O’Hearns, started out by suggesting that the Colour of the Year is somewhat of a pointless annual exercise. He argued that while trends around colour usage make sense in the interior design world to some extent, and fashion too, when used in a branding capacity any kind of “trend” like this is detrimental to a brand rather than something that should be used as a way of staying relevant; staying “true to your colours” applies in quite a literal sense.

Digital Marketing Manager, Amy Gleave, considered the annual announcement from a marketing perspective. She noted that the multiple brand collaborations that appear when the new colour is announced – this year’s Motorola collaboration sees a Peach Fuzz coloured back on two of its phone models – is purely just another way of selling more stuff. Pantone itself, on the Colour of the Year page on the website, suggests that brands “Partner with Pantone to showcase your products in the Color of the Year and reach a global audience that’s passionate about design and color”.

Other team members were even more cynical about the Colour of the Year concept: Head of Design, Oli Furze, said that the Colour of the Year seems to be a tactic for Pantone to remain relevant, as a world where print identifiers like Pantone references are less needed.