Living Coral chosen as 2019 colour

CITING consumers’ desire for real human connections amid an increasingly negative social media landscape, the trend forecasters and colour experts at Pantone have selected Living Coral as 2019’s colour of the year. The announcement was made at Art Basel Miami Beach.

“We’re looking for those humanising qualities because we’re seeing online life dehumanising a lot of things,” Laurie Pressman, the Pantone Colour Institute’s vice-president, said. “We’re looking towards those colours that bring nourishment and the comfort and familiarity that make us feel good.”

Since 2000, Pantone has been analysing cultural trends in order to predict what colour will be ubiquitous in the art, fashion and design worlds in the coming year.

But more recently, the company has hinted that it’s hoping to influence society, too.

The Pantone Colour of the Year has come to mean so much more than ‘what’s trending’ in the world of design; it’s truly a reflection of what’s needed in our world today,” Pressman explained last year.

Last December, the company selected Ultra Violet, a “dramatically provocative and thoughtful purple shade” as its colour of the year for 2018. The company noted at the time that the colour combined blue and red, “two shades that are seemingly diametrically opposed”.

For some, the announcement read as a coded call for bipartisanship in a period of political polarisation.

Living Coral was chosen because “we are seeking authentic and immersive experiences that enable connection and intimacy”, the company said. | Washington Post