① Pantone has named its eagerly anticipated annual color of the year for 2026, choosing a “billowy, balanced white” named Cloud Dancer. The self-described “global color authority” claims that PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer has an “aerated presence” which “acts as a whisper of calm and peace in a noisy world.” It is the first time Pantone has chosen white since it began naming a color of the year in 1999.
② Pantone is a global color-standardization company, and its color of the year is chosen annually by the Pantone Color Institute, a team of color researchers who also provide color consulting services and forecast trends in the market. The color of the year is chosen by a team of experts and is intended to “draw attention to the relationship between culture and color,” the company says.
③ To select the color, a global team looks at new technologies, social values, art collections, travel destinations, and assesses the overall mood or feelings designers and consumers are feeling throughout the year. “There’s reasons why people gravitate to certain color families when they do. For us, it really is zeroing in on a color family that we see bubbling up across all areas of design, and then from there, drilling it down into the color that we see,” Pantone Color Institute vice president Laurie Pressman told TIME last year. “I always liken this team to almost like color anthropologists.”
④ “At this time of transformation, when we are reimagining our future and our place in the world, Pantone 11-4201 Cloud Dancer is a discrete hue offering a promise of clarity,” Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of Pantone Color Institute, said in a press release. “The cacophony that surrounds us has become overwhelming, making it harder to hear the voices of our inner selves. A conscious statement of simplification, Cloud Dancer enhances our focus, providing release from the distraction of external influences.” Cloud dancer, Pantone says, calls back to the need for human connection and understanding between one another. The white color also represents the possibility of a clean slate, or a new beginning to draw upon.
⑤ It is not the first time Pantone has sought to calm the world with its color of the year. Mocha Mousse was chosen for its warmth and harmony in 2025, and 2024’s Peach Fuzz was likewise described as a gentle and nurturing shade. Cloud Dancer may be the first white ever chosen as the color of the year, but Pantone came close in 2006 with the neutral Sand Dollar, which was reportedly chosen to reflect concern over the economy.
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