Thoughts on the 2021 Pantone colours of the year: Ultimate Gray and Illuminating
via Pantone
I don’t have to tell you how difficult this year was. 2020 was the year of the pandemic and the lockdowns, when the days blurred into one and we couldn’t tell Monday from Saturday. We were forced to stay home and stare into our little glass screens as the world outside descended into chaos. We were desensitised to death tallies that came in without fail day in and day out. We saw our healthcare workers’ tired faces at the end of each day, with marks from the many hours they wore PPEs. We lost so, so many people. We became accustomed to numbers and images that would’ve been shocking to us any other year. The grief became familiar- dull, numbing, Ultimate Gray.
It’s the colour of the sweatpants we wore while we saw protests erupt all over the world: USA, Belarus, Poland, Hong Kong, and so much more. We saw violence. We heard cries of injustices and unfairness. We saw a world in relentless pain- over and over and over again.
But here’s the thing about humans: we can’t help but hope. No matter how stupid and illogical it is. The year felt both long and fleeting, but by the end of it, we saw a small bit of light at the end of the tunnel: A vaccine. It brought with it daydreams of golden summer days spent outdoors, away from our grey walls, sunbathing, drinking, laughing with friends. It’s not as easy a fix when it comes to the protests, but the very existence of these movements suggest the persistent hope that better days will- must- come, days when we don’t have to fight for basic human rights. Even when Joe Biden won the US elections in November, it felt less like an explosion of celebration and more like a sigh of relief. ‘Illuminating’ reflects that. It’s not a bright yellow light. It’s a quiet but unyielding hope.
This is only the second time in Pantone’s 22 years of naming a colour of the year that two colours have been selected. And even that is well thought-out. “No one colour could get across the meaning of the moment,” Laurie Pressman, the vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, told New York Times. “We all realised we cannot do this alone. We all have a deeper understanding of how we need each other and emotional support and hope.”
Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, said “the colour combination presses us forward.” But really, where else will we go? Even in the dull, grey, monotony of days like these, we have to hold on to that illuminating yellow of hope.
