BY: JESSE BUSTER
Last week color standards company Pantone unveiled their 2019 Color of the Year. The color: Living Coral, a peachy shade of orange with a golden undertone.
Pantone – an elegantly vibrant focal color that emulates life.
Coral reefs are very intricate, delicate and robust offering infinite connections to life, from ecosystem to organism.
If asked to close my eyes and imagine the underwater scene of life, colors immediately pop out and broadcast the fore/back grounds with highlights of various hues on the spectrum. There would be the array of blue, from aqua to deep blue, highlights of green and yellow vegetation & fish, and then there is the color of pantone, that oh so wonderful complementary red/orange to the ocean blue/green. If someone were to create an abstract mosaic that included the colors of the underwater scene of serenity, there would be the blues and greens, yellows and purples that are apparent, but there would also be the array of pantone – when asked what that color suggests, I’d say ‘it could easily be a fish, but my heart is telling me it is coral, a sign of a healthy environment and a place I want to be.
This color does not however, scream out bloody murder such as red (as beloved a color it is and oh so suitable in design), it subtly provides a pop important for landscape focal elements. It is a very clean/crisp color that would complement most any other color.
This color (or spectrum of colors) in design might suggest importance, healthy & vibrance (sure sustainability), and that strength is found in something delicate. That this project may just stand out from the rest.
Color theory isn’t an afterthought.
