Living Coral – Pantone’s colour of the year 2019

Something optimistic, or a short treatise on Living Coral

We live our lives in constant motion. We are in a hurry to get to work, our daily lives are determined by things that can overshadow observing the world around us. And the world is full of amazing colours that we often pass by indifferently. However, when we have a moment to relax, such as when watching nature films, we often pay attention to the pictures, their colours and their temperature.

It is said that the devil is in the detail. And one such detail that is worth taking a closer look at this year is Living Coral. After all, it is the colour that, according to the acclaimed American Pantone Institute, is set to dominate home interiors and blend gracefully with our wardrobe. In 2017, the colour of the year was Greenery, a warm green, followed a year later by Ultra Violet, symbolising spirituality, mysticism and mystery. Living Coral, in terms of its impact on the human senses, has a completely different task than its predecessors. Let’s take a closer look at which ones!

Living Coral – Pantone’s colour of the year 2019 - 87845

Living Coral as an oasis of calm

Living Coral is a relaxing colour. It has intensely invigorating qualities and brightens up the environment. On the one hand, it is quite striking, but on the other it is not a colour that is so saturated that it becomes irritating after a while. Its genesis comes from reef corals, which we have often seen in programmes about oceanic wonders. With its proverbial drop of golden colour, it has something of an eye-catching, positive, calming quality about it.

So if you decide to decorate your home with it, you will find it easier to relax, to unwind before another day of work or study. And if you wear something in this colour, you will be perceived more positively by those around you, according to the saying ‘as they see you, so they write you’. For with its unobviousness, this colour immediately breaks the mould of what we are used to. It is exotic, rarely seen and therein lies its undeniable charm.

Living Coral as a symbol of ecology

Reaching deep into this year’s Pantone Institute selection, one cannot fail to mention its ecological overtones. As already mentioned, the colour of living coral was created by Mother Nature to bestow it on oceanic reefs. We live in a time of massive environmental pollution, highly destructive human impact on the viability of animal species and the industrialisation of non-destination areas.

Living Coral – Pantone’s colour of the year 2019 - 87932

So if we still want to enjoy Living Coral in its natural surroundings, we must finally take real action to make the only world available to us cleaner, to stop being grey and covered in smog. So, by choosing Living Coral as this year’s positive, motivational colour, let’s carry with us a message, a certain message that will allow us to pause, at least for a moment. The unsettling reflection that, behold, the world is fading from us, that colours such as this, once much more common in nature, are beginning to hide from us. Or rather: they are being hidden by us, our activities as a species.

Living Coral – the icing on the cake

Depending on your character, aesthetics and attitude to the world, you will have very different attitudes to Living Coral. According to the Pantone Institute, it will do best as a non-dominant of its surroundings, just as it does not dominate the flora and fauna on our planet. It will serve its purpose not as an overpowering colour for an entire interior or garment, but as a distinctive part of it.

The most sensible thing to do, for example, is to paint one wall in a room with it, or to purchase household items in this colour. As far as wardrobes are concerned, it will be particularly prominent in T-shirts, but it is also worth thinking about combining it with other colours such as white or, unsurprisingly, marine. Although Living Coral is not one of those colours that can evoke negative associations, it is worth dosing it, thus reinforcing its message. The effect will be much more intriguing, unobtrusive and thus avoid accusations of blindly following trends.

As you can see, quite a lot can be written about a single colour, although it was meant to be very brief. The more aware we are of the importance of colours, the better it will be for us to live surrounded by them, absorb them and see their successive evolutions, because there are still hundreds of colours in the world that we may not know exist. And to the vital coral, we wish you every success this year, to reach where it has not yet gone 🙂