The Colors That Influence Us

The color of our office could affect our mood, our wellbeing, and our performance. If your boss wants you to relax and be happy, then your workplace should be green. Meanwhile oranges and reds encourage socialization and blue might make us sleepy. As for performance, vivid yellow hiked students’ reading comprehension.

However, having referred to green, orange, red, blue, and yellow, I might be imagining a different hue from you.

Then we need Pantone.

Color of the Year

During the 1960s, at a commercial printing company, no one was sure what customers meant when they named the color they wanted. So, the owner decided to number his colors and rename his firm Pantone. The result was a book that, by the 1970s, had sold more than 100,000 copies. Specifying a number for a color, it made life more accurate for many people.

Still in the color business today, Pantone says that they “help define, communicate, and control color.” Through a website list of products and services, you can see that they assist “color conscious” industries that range from architecture to beauty. Also, their color of the year becomes a benchmark for what is “in.” Adorning eyes and covering couches, the color is adopted by countless companies for current designs. Supposedly, it represents a contemporary image and conveys a message.

Below we have the colors of 2019 to 2024. They range from the “soft embrace” of 2024’s peach fuzz to the “calm, confidence, and connection” of 2020’s classic blue:

This year, they selected Mocha Mousse. Described as a color that “nurtures” us through its connection to coffee and chocolate, Mocha Mousse is a source of comfort:

But, do scroll down to their video and decide if you get the message:

Our Bottom Line: Standardization

As economists, we can say that Pantone’s color charts are examples of a standardization process that began more than 200 years ago.

In 18th century France, there were 250,000 different units of measurement, some with different names and some, the same. Assorted fabrics, grain, and wood all had their own metric. If you sold a pint in several places, the amount could have varied by 20%.

It all changed during the 1790s when two scientists attempted to create some standardized measurement.  First, they had to define a metric and then to universalize it. As for the measurement, they focused on the meter by calculating the distance from the North Pole to the Equator and dividing it by 10 million. The task was actually a huge trigonometry problem as each one traveled from one place to the next creating imaginary triangles to measure the distance. Then, from the size of the meter, they could leap to the kilogram and define it as “a cubic decimeter of rainwater at 4 degrees Celsius.”

But much more than measurement, standardization is about commerce. Only when we know how much we are selling and buying–and its color–can we minimize the hassles and focus on the market.

And finally, returning to our title, these might be the colors that influence us:

My sources and more: Thanks to WSJ for reminding me it was time to look again at the color of the year. From there, this research link was helpful as was the Pantone website.

Please note that as an update, several of today’s sections were in a previous econlife post.