I L L U M I N A T I N G is Pantone's color of the year and I think we cannot thank her enough. She has come just in time!
I am sure we can all agree that this past year has been a little dark. But as I've always said, "You cannot have the beauty of light unless there is darkness for her to shine". And here she is, "Illuminating", shining so bright after great darkness and announced just in time for Hanukkah and Christmas, two holidays that are about light dispelling darkness.
Being the lightest hue of the spectrum, the color psychology of yellow is uplifting and illuminating, offering hope, happiness, cheerfulness and fun. Yellow inspires original thought and inquisitiveness. Yellow is creative from a mental aspect, the color of new ideas, helping us to find new ways of doing things. It is wisdom, logic, the practical thinker, not the dreamer. Yellow is the best color to create cheerfulness and enthusiasm for life and can awaken greater confidence and optimism. Yellow helps with decision making as it relates to clarity of thought and ideas.
The color yellow can also be anxiety producing as it is fast moving and can cause us to feel agitated. If you are going through a lot of change in your life you may find you can't tolerate the color yellow very well - this will usually pass. It just means that you are having trouble coping with all the changes at the moment and yellow vibrates too fast for you, making you feel stressed. Introduce green or a soft orange into your life for a while to balance and restore your energies.
Otherwise, Yellow is perfect for promoting hope, happiness, inspiration and creativity which is what we all could use a little more of these days as we all are transitioning into something new.
