A colour blind, layman's musings on Pantone's colour of the year...

& a cynics view of marketing and PR

Feb 13, 2026

When seeing Pantone’s 2026 colour of the year for the first time…

You could be forgiven for having the same reaction as me… namely ‘what colour?’.
I’m somewhat gratified that lots of the interweb seems to feel similarly given the volume of meme’s and commentary I’ve been subjected to around it, so I thought I’d chuck my two penneth in - prompted in the main, by a chat I had with the brilliant JP Clark - for a piece he’s writing for his brilliant HOME & HORT by JP Clark - and here I’ll be expanding more widely on my thoughts on the use of white in interiors and homes… albeit late to the party - sorry folks my substack is only a week or so old and before that, I’ve not really had a place to air and vent haha!

I mean… stick a dentists chair in the middle and you’ve got yourself a fine room for pulling teeth - surely something everyone wants to emulate with their living rooms?

I also want to touch on ultimately (as someone who’s spent all their working life in and around sales and marketing in some form or another!), the colour of the year thing, being a marketing campaign… and in a world where viral, clickable, shareable content that people get indignant about and fall over themselves to offer opinions on, is certainly going to create a bit of hullabaloo, and get them seen and talked about plenty (the irony is not lost on me that I’m about to do the same thing!)…

Especially relevant I think when, alongside the colour ‘Cloud Dancer’ - which apparently isn’t just a colour, it’s a mindset(chortle)… and one in which you can invest in merchandise (£28.80 for a mug anyone… a fairly plain ~~white~~ Cloud Dancer mug? Bargain at twice the price I reckon!), as well as lots of I’m sure lucrative collaborations… anything from play-doh (in case your kids need more of a cloud dancing mindset!), scents (really!), and post-it notes… that’s right folks - we’re really breaking ground here with

white post-it notes!

It’s a mindset remember people… and I think that mindset might be ‘can’t be arsed’… now, for your brew drinking pleasure, in mug form…

Very clever Pantone…

OK, I’ll try and stop being quite so facetious, and get back on topic now!

Using white at home

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