The 2015 Color of the Year is...

Contributing to the Funday Blog means staying at the leading edge of what's out there in the world, but this is certainly a first.  The good people at Sherwin-Williams have asked me and the Funday Blog to help them reveal the 2015 Color of the Year - Coral Reef.

A color theorist I once worked with professed that pink is everyone's color - it compliments any skin tone and finds a natural fit with almost any contrasting or complimentary color.  In architecture, arguably the tone that best compliments built work is the light of day and the best of that light comes at the quiet times that begin and conclude each day when the light is a warm pink with hints of orange sunlight refracted through the.  The Sherwin-Williams Color of the Year for 2015, Coral Reef, has the properties to convey that subtle blend of hues to compliment any surrounding. 

To carry the metaphorical comparison of dawn and dusk further, imagine yourself at those times of the day and a sense of what the color coveys begins to emerge.  It is a contemplative time, but also one where the mind is crisp and alert.  Coral Reef is a color that is complimentary, bathing spaces in warmth while deftly weaving between field and accent colors.  But this color doesn't take a back seat in the space either - it's a balanced tone that provides enough saturation to be a source of energy while not being overpowering. 

Finally, Coral Reef like the light of dawn and dusk provides a hue that connects the man-made built environment to the natural world around it.  It's no coincidence that this color is a natural compliment to bright green vegetation or that it has a strong relationship to the color of sandstone - an elemental part of architecture in the American West where I claim my roots as a person and a designer.

Coral Reef in the world of architecture shows up naturally with the sun at the beginning and end of each day, so what happens if we try to bottle that feeling?  We get this year's Color of the Year.