Friday Pretty: Pantone's Yearly Picks and musings

I was poking through the Pantone website and on Wikipedia and came across this graphic of the last twelve years of Pantone's Color of the year picks:

Seeing them all together made me wonder about the repetition of certain colors and trends, so I resorted by like color:

I find it interesting that plain old green has never been a Color of the Year choice. Really? Of course, I'm biased as green is my favorite color. But still...

Tobi Fairley

Linda Merrill via Country Woman magazine

Purple isn't represented either. Not a huge surprise as it's kind of a love it or hate it color (but then, so is orange). But, when done well, purple can be spectacular. 

Credit Domino magazine, via

via Pinterest, but source unknown. If you know, please let me know!

What color do you think Pantone should chose for 2013?

Speaking of Pantone, I got to thinking when I read the obituary of Gustaf Lindquist who passed away last week at the age of 88. He was the Dad of an old friend from high school, although I'm not sure I actually met him. In any event, he was a chemist and was in the printing business during his career. According to the obituary, Mr Lindquist "Distinguished himself as a pioneer in the printing ink industry through the development of color matching systems, including the Lewis Roberts Matchmaster Color System and the Pantone Matching System, the world standard for color matching in printing and design."

I think Pantone should select a shade of green for it's 2013 color of the year. But whatever color they select, I'll be thinking of Mr. Lindquist and his impact on the use of color in design.

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