PANTONE has announced Ultra Violet 18-3838 as its Colour of the Year 2018. The striking purple shade is a dramatic move on from the 2017 shade of Greenery, but PANTONE has deemed it the appropriate colour to represent a point in time which requires “inventiveness and imagination“.

PANTONE went on to point out that “enigmatic” purples had long been symbolic of counterculture, unconventionality, and artistic brilliance and were favoured by music icons such as Prince, David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix.