Pantone, a provider of professional colour standards for the design industries, has recently unveiled Greenery as its Color of the Year for 2017.
Since 2000, the Pantone Color Institute has been choosing a colour each year that it believes will feature prominently in product designs and advertisements, as well as to reflect the global sentiment.
The institute said that the fresh and zesty yellow-green shade its chosen “as it evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew.”
“Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of Greenery signals individuals to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate,” it added.
After a year of economic gloom and adverse events around the world, the institute believed that the colour is a symbol of new beginnings.
“While Serenity and Rose Quartz, the Pantone Color of the Year 2016, expressed the need for harmony in a chaotic world,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the institute “Greenery bursts forth in 2017 to provide us with the hope we collectively yearn for amid a complex social and political landscape. Satisfying our growing desire to rejuvenate, revitalize and unite, Greenery symbolizes the reconnection we seek with nature, one another and a larger purpose.”
The institute said that the more submerged people are in their own modern realities, the greater their innate craving to immerse themselves in the physical beauty and inherent unity of the natural world. This shift is reflected by the proliferation of all things expressive of Greenery in daily lives through urban planning, architecture, lifestyle and design choices globally. A constant on the periphery, Greenery is now being pulled to the forefront—it is an omnipresent hue around the world.
In 2011, the institute declared Honeysuckle as the colour of 2011 because it believed that “in times of stress, we need something to lift our spirits. Honeysuckle is a captivating, stimulating colour that gets the adrenaline going—perfect to ward off the blues.”
“The tangy yellow-green speaks to our desire to express, explore, experiment and reinvent, imparting a sense of buoyancy,” said Ms Eiseman. “Through its reassuring yet assertive vibrancy, Greenery offers us self-assurance and boldness to live life on our own terms, during a time when we are redefining what makes us successful and happy.”
In this spirit of reconnection, exploration and belonging, Pantone has partnered with Airbnb—a community marketplace that provides access to unique accommodations and experiences around the globe—tobring Greenery to life through an experience in early 2017.
The collaboration, a first of its kind, was inspired by the company’s vision for Greenery and Airbnb’s community that connects travellers.
A Colour Of Innovation
While often associated with environmentalism and nature, Greenery is also a unifying thread in tech and innovation because of its association with boldness, vigour and modernity.
Many new apps, animation iconography and digital-first start-ups express this energy by using the riveting and attention-getting shade of green in their logos. Conveying progression and a pioneering spirit, Greenery portrays an entrepreneurial essence that aligns with the industries that have embraced it.
Greenery For Fashion
Greenery is nature’s neutral. A great harmoniser merging undertones of cool blues with vibrant yellows, the hue is a natural complement to a wide range of palettes.
Like the spectrum of possibilities in colourful petals and blooms paired with lush green leaves, plants and trees, Greenery provides a pop of colour in accessories and footwear, or as acts as a bold accent in a pattern.
Prominent in fashion for men and women as seen in the recent collections, Greenery has also been shown in a variety of solids and prints in children’s wear.
Greenery blends fashion and tech as well, as a prominent colour for wearables and active wear.
Greenery For Home Décor & Architecture
Open spaces in interior and exterior design and floor-to-ceiling windows allow the green outdoors to become part of a room’s backdrop and ambiance.
Adding Greenery through living walls, terrariums, botanically-themed wallpaper, paint, accent furniture and decor provides respite and breathing space.
A Greenery-painted wall or piece of furniture delivers a pop of colour, with the added benefit of creating the illusion of nature indoors.
Bringing the outside in, the shade—like the plant life it represents—can improve self-esteem, reduce anxiety and heighten awareness of one’s surroundings.
Greenery For Beauty
In the ultimate personal display of boldness and vitality, Greenery is deployed as a chic, confident punch of colour for hair, lips, eyes and nails.
It is also a camouflaging base for natural beauty looks, with green makeup rooted in colour-correcting trends. A complementary colour to red shades, Greenery plays down ruddiness in the skin.
Greenery For Food & Beverage
Holistic, harmonious living is linked to the power of plants: invigorating Greenery is prominent in many health food trends today, including matcha, seaweed and avocado, while the growth of urban agriculture and indoor vertical farms brings the essence of Greenery to unexpected places.
On the table, Greenery plates and chargers provide an appetizing backdrop for food—making dishes pop and appear fresh. Greenery is also often used in design for the hospitality and culinary industries to convey organic healthfulness.
Greenery For Graphic Design
Because of green’s prevalence in nature, it maintains a perception of being inherently good for you and organic. People respond on a visceral level to the hue, making the eye-catching Greenery an ideal shade for many applications of graphic design. This is especially true for packaging, where the sight of Greenery provides an instant message of freshness.
