In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I decided to look at our Pantone books to see what shade of green exemplifies the holiday. Starting from page 121 through 154, and again from pages S35 through S44, we see colors that most folks would see as “green.” The famous white vs blue dress photos showed us that people can see color differently. But we may all agree on what we imagine, when we think of “pea soup” green, right?
They are ALL Green
The Pantone colors range from dark forest greens and teal shades to moss greens and neons. They are all named and labeled with numbers. I suppose the numbers represent the ink formulation and help the folks at Pantone organize the colors, but they don’t really mean anything to us as designers. (The numbers, in fact, don’t even help us find the swatches in the book.)
Working with clients we find that words have the power to help clients see and feel the design. Recently, when presenting a brochure design to a client, I described the palette as a tasteful grey silk and wool blend Armani suit with a pop of electric green in the tie pattern. The client added “or the pocket square.” They got it. We wanted a smart, stylish, handsome, confident set of colors for this project and the words helped us communicate that. With all the greens in the book it was hard to find the perfect St. Paddy’s green, but the designers came up with some fun names anyway. See if you agree and Happy St. Patrick’s Day from all of us at Opus Design.
