Trend Perspectives by Cynthia Maxwell
PANTONE’s color of the year Living Coral 16-1546 announced at the beginning of this year, is likely to show up in a vast array of products from the trending tennis shoe to your next set of sheets. As described by Pantone: “Living Coral emits the desired, familiar, and energizing aspects of color found in nature.” This color evokes warmth and comfort and is almost joyous! So maybe we will feel good when seeing Living Coral? Depending on how it’s interpreted, Living Coral could be pink but Pantone sides with it being an orange tone and I agree. It is pretty bold!
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Living Coral is such an obvious choice for home décor, fashion, and beauty but what about food and drink packaging?
First off, packaging in orange is thought to suggest fun, creativity, curiosity, and adventure. Supposedly it has been shown to increase oxygen to the brain. Ironically, citrus fruits have been shown to boost brain function because they have specific types of flavonoids that protect brain cells and improve brain function.
Grapefruits (the inside), mandarins and tangelos are some of the citrus fruits we think of being in the Living Coral color range. Infused drinks are a huge trend for 2019, and there is no shortage of beverages that use some of the orange-hued fruits. Strange Love, an Australian soft drinks brand, continues to push boundaries in low-calorie soda, premium mixers, and organic soft drinks. They are currently using mandarin, grapefruit, blood orange and ginger, all tones of our new color of the year in a variety of their potions. The Organic Blood Orange & Chili soda and The Very Mandarin are favs of followers.
RELATED: Trend Perspectives - Health & Wellness in 2019
GUDO brands go above and beyond to create delicious gluten-free bread, snacks, crackers with an overall joyful packaging aesthetic using bold, bright colors and fonts. The packaging of their sunflower, chia, and flaxseed loaded “Brown Bread” is in deep coral. Could this package color create excitement around brown bread? Regardless it is eye-catching color and design and could pique curiosity around this dull colored food.
Chef Brendan Pang, a contestant on MasterChef Australia 2018, uses Unicorn Super Foods powder to color his dumplings, creating a visually stimulating canvas of gorgeous color that is healthy and tastes good. The “Immunity Blend” is a blend of ginger, curcumin, orange and carrot and the “Beauty Blend” a blend of beetroot, mangosteen, roselle, and strawberries. Both combinations give the professional and home chef enough color to address the joyous coral. Take a look at their Instagram page full of beautiful bright colored pancakes, smoothies, donuts and a variety of desserts that look, to much surprise, mouth-watering because you know the colors used are healthy and food based.
Finally, what about colors combined with Living Coral? We know all too well in fashion and accessories how colors work together is essential.
Since we first eat with our eyes, consider these food color combinations.
The coral shelled lobster sits well on a bed of greens, purple-hued foods pop when paired with grapefruit shades, and berry focused deserts take on a festive vibe with an accent of coral.
I’m hungry right now thinking about all these coral colored foods!
