Is Pantone’s Colour of the Year Marmite?

I am lucky to live in Cyprus, especially in the springtime. March is when the island bursts into colour, and becomes that ‘Green-golden leaf thrown in the sea’ from the poem by Leonidas Malenis. Elsewhere Nature might shake out her skirts of green, but in Cyprus the acacia has ballroom gowns! Add to this the clear light beloved of artists here (and in my native Cornwall), and we have a veritable feast of green and gold.

Which brings me to Pantone’s Colour of the Year: Greenery. Yes, it seems it has turned out to be something of a marmite colour, and if Pantone didn’t exactly expect us to take to it wholeheartedly, they surely got the design world talking. Described by them as a fresh and zesty yellow-green, Elle Deco probably gave it the kiss of death in some quarters by calling it a Kermit shade!

On some websites, it shows up more as acid green, a colour I love as you can see if you check out the Geo and Linear ranges. It’s matched with Ultramarine Blue as a 2-colour design but you can be creative and pick your own colour combinations. (Contact me for further info on this). Acid green is really an accent colour and you would not expect it to be used in large areas, but paired with backgrounds of black, white, dark grey and darker blues, it looks amazing.

I also do a little interior design as Cyprus Living Spaces, so I  thought I would mention Sherwin William’s Alabaster, which I used to replace the stark white paint in a villa being prepared for holiday rental. Unbeknown to me at the time, this was their Colour of the Year 2016. It’s a lovely paint which they described as ‘a hue symbolic of new beginnings’.  Strangely enough, Pantone’s description of Greenery is: ‘A refreshing and revitalizing shade, Greenery is symbolic of new beginnings.’

Shall we begin again?!