I didn’t know this and I don’t know what the colour for 2014 was – I’m sure there’s a joke here but I can’t find it – but the colour for 2015 is…
Marsala.
Introducing Marsala – Pantone website (16 December 2014)
Of course, you’ll know it better as Pantone 18-1438.
Here it is adorning the Pantone website:
And because I know you’re looking at me like that, the answer is that 2014’s colour was Radiant Orchid.
Nod of the hat to The Loop for knowing these things.
I thought this was something to do with pornography, but no. Not depression, either. Actually blue:
The blue at the top of this post [on the original site] is a Google blue. It’s not the only Google blue, just the Google blue you see the most. How was it chosen? Another blue, a slightly different Google blue, the story goes, was selected by a designer who liked how it looked. But this designer was told by a manager that this blue was the wrong blue: Another blue, testing revealed, had resulted in more clicking. Their boss intervened. 41 blues, between the nice blue and the powerful blue, were tested for efficacy. One prevailed.
The Awl’s full article shows those blues and you’ll be surprised how readily you recognise Google’s and Twitter’s and Facebook’s shades of the colour. But it’s also interesting because it includes a nod to a time when there wasn’t a word for blue – and to the moment that someone decided underlined links on the web should be and would be blue.