Pantone Names Viva Magenta Its 2023 Color of the Year for Its ‘Liveliness and Energy’

Pantone revealed its highly anticipated color of the year for 2023: a bold shade of pink christened Viva Magenta.

The color is all about optimistic celebration, experimentation, and unrestrained self-expression, according to the Pantone color consultancy.

“As virtual worlds become a more prominent part of our daily lives, we look to draw inspiration from nature and what is real,” Leatrice Eiseman, the Pantone Color Institute’s executive director, said in a statement. “PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta descends from the red family, and is inspired by the red of cochineal, one of the most precious dyes belonging to the natural dye family as well as one of the strongest and brightest the world has known.”

“Rooted in the primordial, PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta reconnects us to original matter,” she added. “Invoking the forces of nature, it galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength.”

The unveiling, which took place at Artechouse in Miami Beach on Thursday, also offered the first look at the exhibition “Magentaverse.” It’s the fourth year that the venue for technology-driven experiential art has crafted an immersive experience celebrating the Pantone color of the year.

The exhibition is designed to be “an experience that highlights the color’s remarkable sense of liveliness and energy,” Tati Pastukhova, Artechouse’s co-founder and executive director, said in a statement. “To make full use of all its possibilities, we had to consider sight, sound, and touch.”

The end result incorporates magenta-hued views captured by NASA’s James Webb Space telescope and other outer-space images from the space agency’s archives into an animated LED tunnel. Using a sonification technique employed by NASA, the installation transforms the pictures into sound.

Other high-tech touches include a LIDAR sensor that visitors exploring the space will activate, triggering the visualization of data in real time. And to create the initial round of images to represent the color, Pantone employed the A.I. generative tool Midjourney.