The official 2023 color of the year named by the Pantone Color Institute is Viva Magenta (PANTONE 18-1750).
Welcome To The Magentaverse
Pantone's Colour of The Year 2023, Viva Magenta 18-1750, vibrates with vim and vigour.
The trend to keep searching for well-being and calm continues in 2023, which translates into neutral colours, broken whites, blues, and browns accompanied by soft and relaxed textures.
Pantone is a company famous for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a standardized color system that provides a universal language for color, ensuring consistency across different materials and industries like graphics, fashion, and product design. By assigning unique codes (e.g., PMS 186 C) to specific colors, Pantone allows designers and manufacturers to communicate and achieve exact color matches, from concept to final production, regardless of the medium.
The lucky color for 2023 is based on the element that rules the sign of the year -it's a color that promises to bring luck, prosperity, and health and can be used to bring those feelings into your interior design project. Forest green is the lucky color for 2023, a color that can represent both – earth and water.
In Chinese culture, the luckiest colors are red, yellow and green. The unluckiest colors in China are white and black. There are also neutral colors that depend on context, such as grey and blue.
The Year of the Dragon occurs once every twelve years, and those born under its sign are said to inherit the mythical creature's auspicious traits. Power, strength, confidence, and ambition are some of the traits most commonly ascribed to the traditional Chinese dragon.
Forty experts from around the world decide the color trend dictated by Pantone–among them Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of Pantone Color Institute; Laurie Pressman, vice president of Pantone Color Institute, and color consultant David Shah.
Described as "drab dark brown," it has been informally dubbed the "ugliest colour in the world". It was selected in 2012 as the colour for plain tobacco and cigarette packaging in Australia, after market researchers determined that it was the least attractive colour.
What's special about Pantone is its role as the universal language for color, providing a standardized, coded system (Pantone Matching System) that ensures precise and consistent color reproduction across different materials, manufacturers, and media, eliminating ambiguity in design, branding, and printing by giving every shade a unique code and formula. It allows designers to communicate colors accurately (e.g., "Pantone 186 C") and helps brands maintain consistent identity, moving beyond vague descriptions like "a shade of green".
Here, designers, decorators, and color experts reveal why beige is replacing gray for 2023, and how to decorate with beige for a beautiful scheme every time.
You read that white: Pantone's 2026 Color of the Year is 'Cloud Dancer' Pantone has chosen its 2026 Color of the Year, and depending on how you look at it, it could be colorless — or the reflection of every color. The "color?" White. Cloud Dancer (PANTONE 11-4201) to be more exact.
It probably goes without saying that black is universally flattering, but there are many occasions when the color is too harsh. Enter navy blue. “Navy blue is a rich, flattering shade that is both fresh and sophisticated,” says Bernay.
Pantone's Color of the Year, Viva Magenta 18-1750, vibrates with vim and vigor. It is a shade rooted in nature descending from the red family and expressive of a new signal of strength.
Red – Energy and Good Fortune
A classic New Year color, red signifies luck, passion, and protection against negative energy. Used thoughtfully, it can energize your start to 2026–red is my choice of color for New Year's Eve, prepping for January 1st.
The most popular color is blue. The second favorite color is green, followed by gray, white, pink, terracotta, and beige.
What color is the least popular? Overall, the least popular color was orange, with 30% of those surveyed voting for it as their least favorite. Other unpopular colors included brown (23%) and purple (13%).
Red and blue (or violet) wavelengths are two opposite extremes on the spectrum. When you see both of these wavelengths in the same place, you eyes and brain don't know what to do with them, so they compensate, and the clashing wavelengths register as the color we call purple. It doesn't actually exist.
An unauthorized claim by third parties that any referenced color or color system is the same as, or equivalent to, a color standard or color system of Pantone LLC, may be a violation of Pantone LLC's proprietary rights and as such, is strictly prohibited.
The color found on approximately 75% of all national flags is red, making it the most common color, followed closely by white and blue, which appear on over half of all flags and are often used in combination with red to symbolize courage, history, and revolution.
The idea is that every item in your wardrobe has a point value, and the ideal outfit scores seven or eight points—never less than six or more than 10. Basics such as a pair of Levi's or a white blouse are worth one point.
In 2020, researchers at the UK's Science Museum Group analyzed the colors in over 7,000 photographs of everyday objects in their collection dating from 1800 to the present day. The results were striking as beginning around 1900, the color palette of these objects grew progressively more gray and less diverse over time.
Things that Dragons should avoid:
Unlucky colors: blue, green. Unlucky numbers: 3 and 8. Unlucky direction: northwest. Unlucky months: the 5th and 6th Chinese lunar months.
The most and least compatible animal signs of the Chinese zodiac!
Dragon's Worst Match: Dog
The Dragon is least compatible with the Dog.