Very Peri

Pantone have announced the colour of the year for 2022. They describe it as “an electric shade of periwinkle blue with a vivifying violet-red undertone”.

As well you might, I suppose.

Apparently this constitutes the first time that the Pantone Institute has chosen an entirely new colour, which it claims is symbolic of a moment of change in society and “displays a spritely, joyous attitude and dynamic presence that encourages courageous creativity and imaginative expression”.

This, I expects, depends more or less entirely on how you choose to define “new colour”.

From one perspective a finite number of colours exist in a mathematical space described by numbers; such as the colours that exist in the space described by the numbers used in the RGBA colour space. Within that space you cannot, by definition, find “new colours”, only come across ones that you cannot recall seeing used anywhere recently.

The number set you used will determine the number of colours available in the mathematical space, and some number sets will yield more colours than other sets but although you may not have seen a particular colour before it will always have existed within the space, just as primary red and black have always existed there.

Not that Pantone care about this, and why should they. They have a new colour to celebrate. Very Peri, since you ask.