After weeks of designers weighing in on their predictions of the big color design trend, we now know Pantone’s 2025 color of the year.
Every year, Pantone the maker of a color matching system multiple companies use in design and manufacturing, selects a color it thinks will dominate the year ahead. Its designers look at trends leading into the new year to inform their decision. For the 2025 Color of the Year, Pantone chose Mocha Mousse.
Pantone Color Institute Vice President Laurie Pressman told USA Today the color is “a mellow brown infused with a sensorial and comforting warmth:”
Meant to engage multiple senses, the color should evoke a desire to dip your spoon into it, Pressman says. Inspired in part by “little treat culture” — a growing trend in which people punctuate their day with small pleasures like a store-bought coffee — Pressman encourages fans to “find your mocha moment.”
See the color on Pantone’s website here, along with a long write-up on the color choice and other complementary color choices that could raise the bar on interior design.
Last year, Pantone chose Peach Fuzz for 2024’s color. I have to admit that I never saw a huge trend in the color peach taking off over the course of the year.
I hoped for some kind of blue
As someone who doesn’t care a great deal about interior design and therefore has no real dog in the hunt, my pick would have been a rich blue.
Not from a political standpoint, mind you.
The color blue often represents peace and tranquility. Scientists who study color and its effects on people suggest it can also represent serenity and stability.
After the past year we’ve had and going into a new year of uncertainty, I think we’re well due for serenity and stability. I don’t happen to believe we’ll get it, at least not in the short term.
But that doesn’t change the fact that I think we’d all benefit from a little peace at this point.
If I’d have had the chance to select a 2025 color of the year, I might have picked a color like this one. Some sources call that shade “Air Force Academy Blue,” though I don’t have any direct Air Force connection, either. It’s a deeper blue but not too dark or too light. But it’s still a relaxing color that, used well, could bring a sense of tranquility to a design.
The last time Pantone selected a blue hue was in 2022 when its pick was “Very Peri,” a periwinkle shade.
Designers heavily favored brown as the official choice
Big name design companies naturally tried to get a jump on the official announcement. Forbes reported that brown was the heavy favorite among the color forecasters. LittleCreek+Co Founder and CEO Brooke Droptini said people are searching for a way to feel grounded in a hectic world, the magazine reported.
Same idea, different color as a path to get there, I suppose.
Designer Curtis Free picked a vibrant cobalt or an azure shade, “subtly grounded by a hit of purple,” he wrote to Forbes. He called it “calming and confident, and reflects a sense of serenity and mindfulness.”
Shades of green and even the color black also got mentions as potential picks for the big trendy color of the new year.
