Phthalo Green Is the People’s 2026 Color of the Year

Earlier this month, creatives of every stripe waited with bated breath for the release of Pantone’s 2026 Color of the Year, looking for a much needed bright moment of excitement for what’s next after a rough 2025. For many of us, though, the announcement itself was met with more of an underwhelmed exhale than anything else. Because the color? White.

Okay, technically, Pantone calls the exact, largely uninspiring just-off-white shade “Cloud Dancer”. Still, it felt like a let-down for many people. I personally was taken aback at the choice of a pigment-less “color” for a company that deals in setting the trending hues, and also suspicious of it. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with white in and of itself, but I couldn’t help but feel like the elevation of it as a color and concept given the current political climate… thoughtless, at best. I wasn’t alone in my side-eyeing, either. (Pantone issued a statement maintaining that the choice was “not as a statement on politics, ideology, or race,” and that the company “does not assign political narratives to color.”)