Heading into each new year, design fans are treated to a number of shades from different companies that are supposed to represent the color of the year. For 2023, Behr thinks the color of the year is “Blank Canvas,” which is basically a slightly warm off-white. PPG and Glidden, meanwhile, go in the complete opposite direction with “Vining Ivy,” a cool bluish-green. Further complicating matters is Sherwin Williams, which puts forth a dusty blush called “Redend Point” as the shade to have for 2023. Then of course there’s Pantone, which hasn’t yet opined on 2023’s color of the year but which has an entire Color Institute dedicated to figuring it out.
Read More
All of this is of course very confusing to anyone who’s looking to outfit their home with next year’s proper color, so to end the controversy over what the One True Color™ of the year actually is, Backdrop and Coming Soon have enlisted the Official National Color Committee. What’s the Official National Color Committee, you ask? According to their Instagram — which includes posts of individual colors like “red” that are helpfully labeled as such — they’re “the official committee responsible for selection and stewardship of the prestigious Color of the Year award.” They even have an official-looking government seal with an eagle and everything (pretty sure it’s just the U.S. Presidential Seal).
In actuality, there is no Official National Color Committee. The “committee” was created by Backdrop and Coming Soon as a viral marketing stunt to launch their own tongue-in-cheek take on a color of the year paint, fittingly dubbed “Color of the Year.” The paint is meant to playfully skewer the arbitrary nature of brands selecting a new color every year, seemingly at random (I mean, just look at the variety for next year), by pretending that there’s an actual official process behind making such a selection.
“Since we launched Backdrop in 2018, we have always felt that paint is the most accessible and impactful way to transform a space,” Backdrop co-founder Natalie Ebel said in a statement. “Rather than being driven by trends, the brand is based on a spirit of self-expression and a belief that color is a very personal choice for each of us. Why prescribe or dictate something like color of the year?”
Backdrop