Some of you care way too much about Pantone for the wrong reasons.
I mean this with my whole heart; stop giving a shit about “the color of the year.” The whole thing is just corporate astrology, and it exists to keep creatives, brands, and consumers orbiting a company that absolutely does not deserve that kind of cultural authority!!
Pantone is not a neutral art resource. It’s a massive corporation that has spent decades trying to assert ownership over color systems through IP law.
Pantone asserts that its color numbers and pigment values are its intellectual property, and that free use of those lists is not allowed. This is why Pantone colors are often missing from open source software and frequently excluded from low cost or community built creative tools. It’s also why Pantone has repeatedly been accused of being intentionally vague about the exact scope of its legal claims. That vagueness is the point. It creates fear, hesitation, and compliance.
People treat Pantone like a design oracle, or get mad that “the color of the year is boring or sucks,” I need you to zoom out a little!!
The problem is not that a megacorp picked an ugly or boring shade.
The problem is that a megacorp is trying to gatekeep color itself behind paywalls and licensing schemes.
Color is not proprietary.
Color is not a brand asset.
Color is a shared human tool that predates corporations by tens of thousands of years. Using IP law to restrict how people reference, reproduce, or standardize color in software and art is deeply, unabashedly disgusting, and it actively harms accessibility, open source development, and independent creators.
If you’re going to spend energy being mad at Pantone, be mad about that.
Be mad that entire creative ecosystems have to tiptoe around a corporation’s legal threats just to describe colors accurately!
Be mad that open source tools are kneecapped so Pantone can keep selling swatch books and subscriptions!!
Be mad that “owning” color is treated as a reasonable business model or concept at all!!!
I am not concerned that Pantone chose a shitty color of the year.
I am concerned that they think they can own it.
germansingergirl
baratheonpilled
dailybridgerton
prguitarman
