Pantone Color of the Year… Peach Fuzz
The Pantone Color Institute announced their highly anticipated 2024 Color of the Year last month, revealing it to be PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz. Blending orange, yellow, and white, this light pastel is clean and soft, evoking a sense of comfort and respite. Peach Fuzz contrasts the bold and vivacious Viva Magenta, 2023’s Pantone Color of the Year. Peach Fuzz stands as a reaction to international turmoil and a need for self-care, playing on the comforting nature of peach as a design option—one that reminds us of sunrises, summer days, and, of course, the delicious fruit.
Letrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute™, spoke on the color’s selection, stating, “In seeking a hue that echoes our innate yearning for closeness and connection, we chose a color radiant with warmth and modern elegance. A shade that resonates with compassion, offers a tactile embrace, and effortlessly bridges the youthful with the timeless.”
How Pantone Selects The Color of the Year
The addition of Peach Fuzz to the Pantone oeuvre marks 25 years of selecting a color that bridges fashion and culture while expressing a mood that resonates with current consumers. Since the introduction of Pantone Color of the Year in 1999, an international team of color experts has come together to survey the landscape in search of influential colors that capture a moment in time. The color experts are anonymous and spend the year researching everything from fashion trends to naturally occurring colors in nature. Once a color is selected, the team deliberates further to find the correct shade.
How the Color of the Year Impacts Culture
Pantone Color of the Year’s international ripple effect cannot be denied. Color psychology shows that different colors can evoke feelings, alter your mood, and even influence behaviors. This plays a massive part in which colors are chosen across industries like fashion, interior design, advertising, arts, and restaurants, among many others. Though Pantone’s specific color choice affects other industries, the color equally represents the trends and moods already present in our world. For example, last year, Viva Magenta showed itself as omnipresent in our culture as Pantone’s selection coincided with the release of the Barbie movie, the rise of Mermaidcore from a niche subculture to mainstream aesthetic, and even found itself on many runways through designs by companies like Dolce & Gabbana and Loewe. Many companies and brands integrated these colors into their advertising, identity, and materials.
How to Use Peach Fuzz in Your Business
As a business, it’s important to embrace new trends. However, that doesn’t mean you need to do a complete brand refresh on behalf of Pantone. Pantone Color of the Year pick, Peach Fuzz, gives an opportunity to leverage its sense of comfort into your branding and visual identity—but make sure to do it in a way that makes sense for your brand.
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Marketing Collateral
Marketing collateral is perfect for integrating Peach Fuzz into your brand’s personality. Items like notepads, folders, brochures, and magazines are temporary, tangible tools that you can infuse with Peach Fuzz’s warm and comforting tones without sacrificing your brand identity. Consider using it within a specific targeted campaign to highlight a product or service. Alternatively, you can integrate Peach Fuzz seasonally—the warm and inviting tone can work well in Spring, a season associated with rebirth, hope, and healing.
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Social Media & Email Marketing
Another way to take advantage of the Pantone Color of the Year is by using it to refresh your digital platforms. The temporary nature of social media and email marketing lends themselves to experimentation. Updating your digital color scheme will position your brand as up-to-date and attentive to current trends. This could be as simple as adding it into your newsletters and social media posts, or something more complex, like creating targeted ad campaigns that use the color to accent limited edition sales or services.
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Product Packaging
Colors tell a story, and there’s no better place to convey emotion than on your packaging. Packaging is the first touch point your products have with a customer, and there’s a wide range of ways you can incorporate Peach Fuzz to make a strong impression. You could integrate it with compelling graphics that convey a mood or with more tactile experiences like embossed text or UV coating to make the colors pop.
Incorporate Peach Fuzz in Your Marketing
Our team at Strategic Factory can help you implement a marketing strategy that uses the Pantone Color of the Year in a way that makes sense for your brand. Contact our experts to learn more about how you can leverage Pantone’s Color of the Year for your business.
