Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana

During the color selection process in planning this wedding, I have found myself combing through various color pallette swatches, debating various shades of peach, and asking myself “What does coral really mean?”  In my research, I discovered something called the Pantone Matching System which is a system used worldwide to identify every unique color of the rainbow and is used by almost every industry you can imagine.  And now I’m a little Pantone crazy!

Each year, Pantone announces its selection for Color of the Year, which often influences the year’s next big trend in colors from fashion to home design to product packaging.  This all sounds very arbitrary, but the color selection process is no joke.  The people at Pantone scour the world to identify what the new color of the coming year will be, drawing in influence from socio-economic conditions and technology, and studying the impact color has on people to determine what it is people really need.

Just this week, Pantone announced “Tangerine Tango” as its top color for 2012 and I’m just ecstatic about it!

As many of you already know, this red orange hue has been my favorite color for years now so it looks like I’m a head of the curve !  It’s a color that surprisingly looks good on almost anyone daring enough to wear it.  It looks great paired with navy blue, gray, and if you’re sassy enough, purple!
 
But more so, what I really love about this color is the emotion that it invokes.  “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy,” explains Pantone Color Institute executive director Leatrice Eiseman.  From a psychological standpoint, color does so much to influence our moods and emotions, and I hope that Pantone’s color decision will give the world the charge of energy and courage we’ll all need to get through these tough economic times.

Circa summer 2008 - See how happy this shade of red orange makes me?!