What’s your favorite color? It likely influences your life and work more than you think! Each year, the Pantone Color Institute announces its Color of the Year, setting design trends across fashion, interiors, and graphic design. But how does Pantone choose the color? What emotions does it evoke? And why does it sometimes spark criticism? This article explores the history of Pantone, the selection process, real-world examples, and even the backlash. See how one shade can inspire so much.

• A Bit of Pantone History

• The Color of the Year Selection Process

• The Influence on Design Industries

• Criticisms and Limitations

• Conclusion

• Get Creative

Pantone Color of the Year

At the end of 1999, the Pantone Color Institute announced Cerulean [PANTONE 15-4020] as the first ever Color of the Year for the year 2000. It was a soft color, meant to represent the blue sky and airy, hopefulness, and it was chosen to represent the new millennium.

At first, it was meant to be a one off to celebrate Y2K, but the concept took off and now, 27 years later, it is still going strong with merchandise, corporate tie-ins (Motorola x Pantone, Joybird x Pantone, Wix x Pantone), brand collaborations (Janavi x Pantone, oyuna x pantone, Society6 x Pantone, Libratone x Pantone, Spoonflower x Pantone), a scent (pura x pantone), and even a tea (tealeaves x pantone). You may have already spotted it in the magazines and on the runways. From makeup brands to home decor, Mocha Mousse is already everywhere.

The Pantone Color of the Year (COTY) went from a cool idea for a color company to celebrate the millennium to a tsunami of influence in commercial and creative spaces. So, how did we get here? How did Pantone become the most recognizable authority on color and how did the COTY become such a celebrated, anticipated and integral part of modern design?

A Bit of Pantone History

Before we dive into this too deeply, let’s get a quick overview of what Pantone is and why they are trusted to choose something as influential as a color of the year.

Back in the 1950’s, Pantone was a printing company in Carlstadt, New Jersey specializing in color charts for cosmetics companies, fashion and medical industries. Laurence Herbert joined the company in 1956 and quickly noticed how difficult it was to communicate effectively about specific colors. Identifying specific colors based on a description or a name is tricky because color is very nuanced and can be subjective.

If I tell you something is red, that doesn’t take into account the shade, the tone or the undertone. The word red does not provide enough information to determine if it leans more toward yellow (warm) or blue (cool), if it is a lighter or darker shade, or if it is highly pigmented/saturated or more faded. In the printing world, this is further complicated by the fact that every color you see is made by mixing only 4 colors (CMYK) and, at this time, it was as much an art as it was a science.

Mistakes happened often and there were a lot of costly inefficiencies in the process of trying to get consistent color every time. At the time it was part of the cost of printing in color but Laurence Herbert knew there had to be a better way to do things. So, in 1962, he bought the company with a vision to tackle this problem. In 1963, Pantone released the first Pantone Matching System (PMS) color guide with 10 colors, it assigned the colors a specific code and a specific formula to use to replicate them on any 4 color press. By the end of the year, there were 500 PMS colors.

From that point forward, Pantone worked tirelessly to establish itself as the standard in the graphic arts industry for color, expanding it’s color libraries, creating and licensing software to manufacturers for desktop publishing and setting up the Pantone Color Institute in 1986. In 1988, Pantone introduced new standards for textiles, impacting the industries of fashion, home décor and interior design. In 1994, Pantone launched the View Color Planner, a book designed to help corporations and designers choose color and learn about color forecasting and trends. And then there was the Color of the Year.

The Color of the Year Selection Process

The Pantone COTY is chosen by a global team of color experts from the Pantone Color Institute. These experts travel the world and research color tends featured in various industries such as art, fashion, entertainment, social media, interior design, graphic design and more. The team is experienced in trend forecasting, various forms of design and color theory, and the impact of color. Anything and everything that impacts our culture can influence the selection of the Pantone COTY.

To narrow down which sources to focus on in a given year, the Pantone Team pays close attention to current events and cultural trends. A source that may have been assigned significant weight in the past (such as trends in print advertising) may take a backseat to a source with greater current cultural significance (such as video games or social media). Current socioeconomic and political landscapes are also important for the team to consider but they are careful not to focus too much on only one specific area because the color of the year is meant to be a macrocosm with global significance.

Based on everything I have read about the way the COTY is chosen, I believe it varies from year and year and is driven and informed by the most globally significant factors, trends and forecasts. Pantone has given itself the lofty goal of trying to predict a color that truly represents the coming year, a color that is a conclusion based on everything they research and analyze. This is why some colors seem to make more direct statements while others, like Mocha Mousse, aren’t as easy to pin down.

According to this article in USA Today, Mocha Mousse was chosen to reflect the idea of harmony. The brighter color trends of 2024 (such as Barbie Pink or Brat Green) and Pantone’s 2023 and 2024 COTY choices reflect a vibrant and celebratory urge that the world seems to be moving away from in 2025.

Reactions to this year’s choice have been mixed with many immediate reactions that were mixed and confused at best. As the year has progressed and the official collaborations have been unveiled, these initial reactions have mellowed. Acceptance, even celebration, rules the day as influential voices across industries use and instruct us how to use this color in 2025.

The Influence on Design Industries

a. Fashion

With many Spring 2025 lines already unveiled, we have a rich environment to see the impact of Mocha Mousse on Fashion in 2025. Some designers leaned heavily into the influence of this color (Isabel Marant, Hermes, and Didu, to name a few), other Fashion Houses went their own way (Acne Studios featuring Brat Green, Zomer’s Vibrant Flowers, and Pierre Cardin who took us to space). An overwhelming majority of Spring 2025 lines have shown a trend toward warm neutrals and just about every major fashion publication has released at least one article about how to wear Mocha Mousse.

b. Interior Design

In the Interior Design space, Mocha Mousse is just one of many influential colors for 2025. In my research for this article, I came across many instances of interior design publications and figures talking about how to use Mocha Mousse in interiors in 2025. Opinions ranged from “the perfect kitchen color” to “an alternative to austere gray” to a way to blend Maximalist Style with practical design in a more harmonious way. The conclusion I came to is that the Pantone Color of the Year is significant in the Interior Design world but there will always be other color and stylistic influences.

c. Graphic Design and Branding

Beyond the official brand collaborations, the influence of Mocha Mousse on Graphic Design and Branding remains to be seen. In this space, clients may wish to embrace or reject color trends depending on the needs of their products or business. While I did find a few Graphic Design and Branding example articles, mostly on potential color palettes featuring Mocha Mousse and the impact of embracing color trends on business, I believe this space is one to watch as the year goes on.

d. Product Design

I’ll be honest, the Product Design collaborations featuring Mocha Mousse were so interesting to me that I included them as a big part of my opening paragraph. There are so many collaborations that I couldn’t even include them all without cluttering that paragraph up (more). Check out the full, official collaboration list here.

e. In the Wild

I have already been seeing Mocha Mousse everywhere but that makes a lot of sense because I have been deep diving this for the past month or so. If you made it this far, congratulations! I’m giving you homework! Let us know on our social pages where you have seen Mocha Mousse in the wild.

Criticisms and Limitations

Mocha Mousse was a controversial choice for 2025, especially coming in on the heels of more dopamine heavy, fully pigmented color trends in the last few years. Initial reactions were mixed at best and trended toward the negative. Why brown? What this specific brown? How does this color represent 2025? How will it fit with existing trends and how will it impact taste in the coming year? Is this soft, warm neutral color a limitation or is it a boon? Will it catch on or will it be overshadowed? Is it boring? What does it mean to each of us? Have the Sad Beige Moms won?

But there were many who embraced the color right away and were thrilled to have a more neutral, minimal color to use. Of these, many sited grounded elegance, timelessness and warm neutrality as their reasons.

My initial reaction was more W.T.F than W.O.W. Due to our backgrounds, I knew Art & Inquiry would cover the Pantone COTY before it was announced and I was hoping for something bold and beautiful, something vibrant and high energy, a color to solve world ennui, a color to give us life and sparkle. When we got brown, it seemed like a big frown, but, as I’ve researched for this deep dive, I have grown to see the positive sides of this color.

This all begs the question, is the Pantone Color of the Year a true reflection of color trends or is it just another (albeit hugely significant) influencer? And when this color starts to show up everywhere, as it already has, is this a reflection of people, industries and companies jumping on a trend or of Pantone truly trend spotting? How do the brand collaborations and runway shows impact the influence? And is the COTY just one more way to monetize color and maintain the authority of the Pantone Color Institute over the world of color?

Conclusion

The Pantone Color of the Year is, beyond a doubt, one of the most influential yearly announcements impacting color across industries. But why? And, more importantly, does Pantone have too much control over color? I entered into this deep dive hoping to answer a lot more of these questions in a much more decisive way but I find myself here with even more questions.

Here’s what I can tell you:

• Pantone worked very hard over many years to establish itself as a foremost authority on color.

• The Color of the Year is one of many tools Pantone uses to maintain this authority.

• The COTY choice is announced and then it is immediately backed up with brand collaborations across industries and the Spring runway shows in the Fashion world.

• Publications, Influencers and Design focused Content Creators create media on the COTY quickly and every year across all industries.

• All this works together in ripples and waves to turn a color forecast into a color future.

Whether you believe this is a good thing or a dangerous monopoly over creative freedom, one thing is for sure: 2025 is the Year of Mocha Mousse, whether we like it or not.

Now it’s time to play.

Get Creative