UICA Visit: 2016 Color of the Year

2016 is the first year that Pantone® has released TWO colors for it's annual Color of the Year.

PMS 13-1520 Rose Quartz and PMS 15-3915 Serenity are a soft combination of warm and cool. 

When choosing a Color of the Year, Pantone chooses a color that will resonate around the world. Rose Quartz and Serenity are very contemporary, meant to inspire a soothing, peaceful feeling.

The 2016 colors are much calmer, more relaxed colors than the previous 12 years. This is in response to modern day stress and our hectic lifestyles. The colors are a calming antidote to everyday demands. 

The colors also blur traditional gender associations. This social trend toward gender fluidity has led to an increased comfort with using color as a form of expression.

The UICA in downtown Grand Rapids has a X-Rite Pantone Color of the Year exhibit on until Sunday, July 31, 2016. A row of gorgeous gowns line the main hallway, visible from the long windows along Fulton. These dresses drew me inside. All are made from light, flowing, soft materials. They create an airy feeling, a simple display of beauty and comfort. 

Several of the exhibition pieces incorporate a gentle, windy feeling or actual blown elements.There's a tranquil feeling throughout the entire exhibition— I was the only visitor in the gallery (this is not unusual at the UICA) and a quiet lull of indie music followed me throughout. 

Overall, they definitely achieved a peaceful space, and I feel like the 2016 color choices are very modern, quiet, and mature. They are a fresh step forward, away from the past palette which has tended to scream "Look at me!" 

Could that really be the direction society is heading?? 

Stop by and see for yourself, now thru July 31st.

Every Color Imaginable in 1692

Technology makes my job fairly easy—but I often hear legends of long nights spent in the studio assembling comps without computers.

One tool that I reference almost daily is the Pantone Color Guide, which was published for the first time in 1963. 

But over 250 years earlier, in 1692, a Dutch artist, known as A. Boogert, wrote Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau—a book about mixing watercolors. The book explained (in Dutch) how to create certain hues and change the tone by adding one, two, or three parts of water. 

This is a simple idea, that became a book of 800 completely handwritten (and painted) pages of complex detail. The scope of this project is rather unfathomable, and had to have been the most comprehensive guide to color of its time. Written as an educational guide, there was only ever a single copy. 

You can read more on This is Colossal or view A. Boogert's entire book here. 

Harvard's Library of Ancient Color

These days, Pantone and Dutch Boy make it possible to browse an endless supply of color. But centuries ago, if you wanted a brilliant shade of lapis lazuli blue, you may have had to trek through Afghanistan scouting minerals.  

Edward Forbes, former historian and director of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University traveled the world world collecting pigments—accumulating over 2,500 different specimens now stored at Harvard University. 
Forbes used the pigments to authenticate classic paintings. In 2007, it was actually pigment analysis that proved a "rediscovered" Jackson Pollock painting was in fact a fake—a specific red color used in it wasn't manufactured until 20 years after the artist's death.

So where does color come from if you aren't calculating CMYK values on a laptop? Here's a few of my favorites from Forbe's Harvard Library:

Annatto – The lipstick plant—a small tree, native to Central and South America—produces this natural orange dye. Seeds from the plant are contained in a pod surrounded with a bright red pulp. Annatto is used to color butter, cheese, and cosmetics.

Mummy Brown – People would harvest mummies from Egypt and then extract the brown resin material that was on the wrappings around the bodies.

Cochineal – Red dye derived from squashed beetles, and it's used in cosmetics and food.

Read more about Harvard's color library on Fast Co.