Color Trends are an interesting thing to watch.  Part marketing, part magic-8-ball-level prediction, paint companies traditionally select a paint color of the year sometime in the fall for the following calendar year and this year has been no exception.

Pantone, while not a paint company, also selects a color of the year. Pantone colors are the universal standard palette of colors used for print media, packaging, and textiles and therefore what Pantone selects either reflects trends in products or drives those trends…in a circular chicken vs egg sort of fashion. 

This year, for the second time, they chose not ONE color for 2021 but TWO - an indecisiveness that played out in several paint company choices as well. The Pantone colors of illuminating and ultimate gray are supposed to indicate sunny/happy/optimism and rock solid/dependable/resilience. Those are not the images that come to MY mind, but I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless. My take on the Pantone Colors for 2021 is HERE.

The worst offender was Behr, who chose a palette of 21 colors that covered everything from neutrals and warm earthy tones to cool and calm nature colors - really? Nothing like hedging your bets!  That’s not a color of the year, that’s a paint deck.

Next up was PPG that chose a trio of 3 colors that together look like a time warp to the deco era of Miami Beach…bad-makeup beige and washed out clay alongside an aqua color that I actually like.  I wish they’d stuck with just that. The other two rather closely resemble the urk my cats used to cough up back when I had cats…

The two largest paint companies, played {mostly} by the rules and picked one color each, though Sherwin Williams snuck in a second one as their Sherwin Williams HGTV house color of the year.  But their main pick of Urbane Bronze is an interesting and livable color - a dramatic but cozy choice for walls, and a flexible pick for furnishings or metal finishes. Their HGTV color was called Passionate - a lipstick raspberry that is also dramatic, but a lot less flexible.

Benjamin Moore selected Aegean Teal a complex mid tone aqua that works with a variety of palettes and evokes a sense of serenity that our battered psyches sorely need after 2020. I created several color paint and textile pairings in THIS post that show how versatile this color really is!  I was surprised to find a number of people were disappointed in the choice - I think mostly people drawn to warmer colors, but it works so well with other favorites, that I think it is a very good pick.   

Color is very personal. Different colors resonate with different people and evoke different emotions. there are no “bad” colors. Every color works SOMEWHERE - it just may not be on your walls! In any case, the color of the year selections are a great stating point for colors to consider, but in the end, always choose the colors that are right for you and for your space. Whether they are trending or not is irrelevant. Paint is the single biggest “bang for the buck” decorating tool and so a great way to refresh your rooms for the new year!

Happy Painting!

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