Here's the official forecast for spring 2007 colors from Pantone. Which one of these colors is your favorite?

	Offical Pantone Color	My Comments
	PANTONE 12-1206 Silver Peony C= 3 M=13 Y=15 K	"My flesh" This is the nudie shirt color
	PANTONE 15-0326 Tarragon C=37 M=7 Y=60 K=0	"Shrek lives on" Tarragon. You gotta have the lime green of Shrek in here. The Shrek color will never die!!!
	PANTONE 16-3801 Opal Gray C=34 M=21 Y=28 K=0	"Messed up Gray" The Opal gray is nice, but it has too much yellow in it. Golden Apricot is a nice color.
	PANTONE 14-1041 Golden Apricot C=8 M=26 Y=70 K=0	"Standard Apricot" Golen Apricot is a nice happy orange color. Interesting how there's a bit of cyan added to the mix. Too bad it's not a bright orange. It's much more subdued. Just like all the colors in the palette except for...
	PANTONE 19-2924 Hollyhock C=55 M=97 Y=14 K=3	"Extreme Purple" HOLLYHOCK! The most saturated color in this group. All the other colors are being so wimpy and light. Hollyhock is the only one that can stand up and be the bold one of the group. I would have to say this is my favorite color of this group. It's just a gut level choice. I used to like purple a lot in high school, it might be growing back on me again. But I probably have this as my fav, because it's the most bold and different.
	PANTONE 13-0648 Green Sheen C=13 M=5 Y=72 K=0	"Acid Yellow" Green Sheen is an interesting departure from the Tarragon. Much more yellow. And it's an interesting departure from the color yellow. It's like yellow, but with a bit--just a bit of green added to it. It's like an acid yellow.
	PANTONE 16-3929 Grapemist C=57 M=28 Y=1 K=0	"Standard blue" The standard inclusion of blue within the palette. Blue is dull. Blah Blah blue. Grapemist could also be read as Grapem-ist. Why in the world is there just a 1% of yellow here?
	PANTONE 16-1220 Café Crème C=19 M=38 Y=45 K=5	"Hot Chocolate" This is actually a very nice color. It does match a good creme coffee. Although it reminds me more of hot cholocate. Man, that would be a rockin color, Hot Chocolate.
	PANTONE 16-1720 Strawberry Ice C=1 M=56 Y=29 K=0	"Strawberry Ice" To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal Light up a stage with Strawberry Ice like a candle. Again with the 1% values. What's with the one percent of cyan? That is just poor color values. How can Pantone do that?
	PANTONE 14-4318 Sky Blue C=45 M=9 Y=8 K=0	"Sky Blue" Another inclusion of blue. What do I have against blue?

Source: "Pantone Unveils the Top 10 Colors for Spring 2007" on creativepro.com. I made an illustrator file with the swatches, if you want to import it into Adobe Illustrator. 2007spring-pantone.zip. View the rest of my color posts.

Pantone, Inc., the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, unveiled PANTONEView Home 2007, the eight most directional color palettes for the home furnishings market for 2007. Here's one of the eight palettes:

2007 Pantone Home 1: Simply Elegant The first palette, Simply Elegant, is a prime example of the marriage of tradition and modern day, the continuing eclectic approach where new technologies, especially in fabrication, finishes and styling, adeptly enable (and encourage) the use of unexpected mixes and textures. Color treatments are equally unique in beautiful blends of mahogany silvered mink, silvery blues, elegant purples and deep bronzed tones set off by the glint of pale gold, frosty almond and copper. Download this set as Illustrator Swatches.
	Copper	#AD6C50	rgb(173, 108, 80)	PANTONE 16-1325
	Frosted Almond	#CCB89F	rgb(204, 184, 159)	PANTONE 13-1012
	Pale Gold	#B78C5F	rgb(183, 140, 95)	PANTONE 15-0927
	Antelope	#AC915C	rgb(172, 145, 92)	PANTONE 16-1126
	Purple Passion	#6D4568	rgb(109, 69, 104)	PANTONE 19-3223
	Silver Blue	#86989A	rgb(134, 152, 154)	PANTONE 16-4706
	Silver Mink	#998A77	rgb(153, 138, 119)	PANTONE 17-1312
	Mahogany	#543C3A	rgb(84, 60, 58)	PANTONE 19-1420

To view all eight palettes, click on the comments below:

Glidden says there's a new trendy color to follow. Golden Kiwi. As one of the color experts says, it's a "sophisticated gold with a teeny bit of green in it."

And there's controversy over this color. Veteran color forecaster at Pantone, Leatrice Eiseman, says Glidden's marketing team may be overhyping golden kiwi. "To call it 'the color of the year' is really pushing it," says Eiseman, who patrols the fashion runways for the latest color inspirations of designers. "We've already done the yellow-greens."


Now you can buy a tshirt or mug that features the color of the year. There's over 25 different tshirt types such as ringer, fitted, baby, sweatshirt, and long-sleeve to choose from. Be the coolest kid on your block today!

Fashion in a “Blue” Mood for Spring 2006. Pantone released their spring 2006 colors.

Source: "Blue Skies Ahead" on pantone.com

Pantone also released a 24 page pdf with suggested color palettes by famous designers. Here's a quick image with all the palettes summarized.

And I made an illustrator file with the swatches if you want to import it into Adobe Illustrator. spring-2006-pantone-colors.zip

This color palette of brown and light blue is really nice in the bathroom. (the source article called it "Rich Browns teamed with Aqua") The key is the white toilet, white shower, and white furniture. The white really goes nicely with this palette. But if you try to mix something else in, that would just throw it all off.

It's really amazing that they can get away with brown in a bathroom, because brown equals poo.

A color question someone asked me recently: What color are tennis balls?
I replied "yellow green."
But some people reply "green yellow."

The debate is... when you describe a color using two words, where do you put the major color? First or second? So if something has more yellow than green, do you say "yellow green" or "green yellow"?

I always thought that the first word is the dominate. But some may argue that the first word is merely describing the second word. Like the first word is an adjective.

Source: "Moroccan Blue' Leads Top Fashion Colors for Fall 2005" on creativepro.com

And I made an illustrator file with the swatches if you want to import it into Adobe Illustrator. 2005colors_womensclothes_v8.zip

The movie Shrek brought out lime green. Normally lime green would have died a long time ago, but thanks to the sequel of Shrek, lime green stayed on the radar. Movies with sequels that have the main character in a bold color will make a color last longer. Don't underestimate the power of children's taste in color. It influences the market.

Source: 11/17/2004 talk by Pantone Insitute Director Leatrice Eiseman at a Unisource/International Paper breakfast

A hot combination is to include brights into a palette of neutrals.

Peach, toupe, pale mauve with rich brass and coppers. 2005 will see more bronzes and coppers. While 2006 will see a marriage of silver and gold.

Alot of yellows. Espicially olives, darker greens, bronzes.

Side note: here's a page with links to download the Spring 2005 "exclusive swatches palette" from the magazine design weblog. I like how they make such a big deal out of how it's "exclusive." Uh yeah, any bloke can download this. big deal.

So in honor of their EXCLUSIVE swatches palette, i'm offering the palettes that Leatrice mentioned in her talk. Here they are as a LIMITED TIME EXCLUSIONARY swatches palette. Oh wait, i didn't make this palette yet. soon. very soon.

Source: 11/17/2004 talk by Pantone Insitute Director Leatrice Eiseman at a Unisource/International Paper breakfast

Leatrice often looks at movies are in production and what colors will be emphasized in those films.

And of course, fashion. Leatrice and the Pantone Color Insititute talk to designers and query them about the colors they will be using in their collections, then the Institute statistically comes up with the top 10 hues of the season.

Technology often introduces new colors, because it allows colors to be used where they were never used before. Car interiors are a place to look for where the up and coming colors will be.

The technology used for materials in cars often tend to be more expensive, because they are new ways of engineering surfaces and treatments. Brushed metals will become hot in 2006, because car interiors are starting to introduce this material. Once it becomes cheap enough, the technologies used to create these surfaces for multiple purposes will spread across product design everywhere.

Oh if you want to know what they top ten hues for spring of 2005 are, Leatrice says:
ïÝTurquoise/aqua blues
ïÝvibrant green
ïÝpinks
ïÝyellows with a hint of green
ïÝa red-orange shade
ïÝa dark blue that's not quite navy
ïÝkhaki
ïÝcantaloupe/coral shades
ïÝlavender
ïÝslate gray

Oh yeah, i'm watching out for the teal

Source: 11/17/2004 talk by Pantone Insitute Director Leatrice Eiseman at a Unisource/International Paper breakfast

Every Monday for the next four weeks, we'll have a new feature called Leatrice's Lessons. Leatrice Eiseman is the executive director of the Pantone Institute. Here's some things she mentioned while giving a talk for a breakfast given by Unisource and International Paper on November 17, 2004

White:
A color not just of purity, but brilliant

Brown:
Not just earthy, but rich and robust, because younger generation associates it with coffee.

Blues:
Not all blues are tranquil. Bright blues: Almost as exciting as red.

Purple:
Purple is a color that can be easily misused. Depending on how it sways over to a reddish-purple or a bluish-purple can have different meanings. Reddish-purple is more sensual. While blueish-purple is more spiritual.

Orange:
Orange used to say cheap, but it's still a hot color. It's quirky and an attention grabber. Apple helped to bring orange into industrial design with the orange ibook. Orange will continue to be hot. It will not be going away for some time. So if you are afraid to use orange in something for the fear of it becoming out of style, you may relax.

Yellow:
Yellow is the new orange.
ï Yellow hasn't been a hot color in a long time
ï Yellow rooms do not make people crazy. Yellow is good for interiors. Good for dark winter days--physically it says sunshine.

Hot Pink:
Hot Pink, Shocking Pink gives same message as red--sensual. Hot pink is becoming a more unisex color.

wow, someone took some very good notes from a Leatrice Lesson a couple years ago. Many of the points are the same.

Source: 11/17/2004 talk by Pantone Insitute Director Leatrice Eiseman at a Unisource/International Paper breakfast

While at the Chicago Cubs game in Milwaukee yesterday, anyone with a fluorescent colored shirt in the stands really stood out.

There should be a professional team with fluorescent green as one of their team colors. Then their fans can populate the stands with bright green shirts.

Of all the sports from baseball (MLB), basketball (NBA), football (NFL) and hockey (NHL) I've recorded the team color combination for each team. Each team got two colors: a primary color and a secondary color.
What would you say is the most popular color combination in sports?

I don't know how many graphic dorks we have on here (I know we have a few), but what is your favorite pantone color?

A folder solid flush with 021. Bam! talk about bright!

When designers are talking about a PMS color, they are speaking about the Pantone Matching System. It's quite a ubiquitous term in the industry to say, "oh i wanted a PMS 186 on that job." But click here to check out all the other acronyms for PMS.