Pantone has named its eagerly anticipated annual color of the year for 2026, choosing a “billowy, balanced white” named Cloud Dancer.
The self-described “global color authority” claims that PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer has an “aerated presence” which “acts as a whisper of calm and peace in a noisy world.”
It is the first time Pantone has chosen white since it began naming a color of the year in 1999.
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The color of the year is chosen by a team of experts and is intended to “draw attention to the relationship between culture and color,” the company says.
This year’s pick is meant to represent serenity and tranquility, which Pantone says is ever in need “in a frenetic society.”
“Similar to a blank canvas, Cloud Dancer signifies our desire for a fresh start. Peeling away layers of outmoded thinking, we open the door to new approaches,” Pantone said in its announcement.
“At this time of transformation, when we are reimagining our future and our place in the world, Pantone 11-4201 Cloud Dancer is a discrete hue offering a promise of clarity,” Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of Pantone Color Institute, said in a press release. “The cacophony that surrounds us has become overwhelming, making it harder to hear the voices of our inner selves. A conscious statement of simplification, Cloud Dancer enhances our focus, providing release from the distraction of external influences.”
Pantone is a global color-standardization company, and its color of the year is chosen annually by the Pantone Color Institute, a team of color researchers who also provide color consulting services and forecast trends in the market.
Read More: Why Mocha Mousse Is Pantone’s 2025 Color of the Year
To select the color, a global team looks at new technologies, social values, art collections, travel destinations, and assesses the overall mood or feelings designers and consumers are feeling throughout the year.
“There’s reasons why people gravitate to certain color families when they do. For us, it really is zeroing in on a color family that we see bubbling up across all areas of design, and then from there, drilling it down into the color that we see,” Pantone Color Institute vice president Laurie Pressman told TIME last year. “I always liken this team to almost like color anthropologists.”
Read More: Pantone’s 2024 Color of the Year Symbolizes Human Compassion and Connection
It is not the first time Pantone has sought to calm the world with its color of the year. Mocha Mousse was chosen for its warmth and harmony in 2025, and 2024’s Peach Fuzz was likewise described as a gentle and nurturing shade.
Cloud Dancer may be the first white ever chosen as the color of the year, but Pantone came close in 2006 with the neutral Sand Dollar, which was reportedly chosen to reflect concern over the economy.
The color may be particularly fitting as the last twelve months have been marked by mass upheaval in the U.S. The assassination of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk shook the country to its core amid the backdrop of rising political violence against notable figures, including the shooting of two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, among other attacks. The upheaval has continued across 2025 with mass protests and the recent shooting of two National Guard members, one of whom was killed, while another remains injured.
Cloud dancer, Pantone says, calls back to the need for human connection and understanding between one another. The white color also represents the possibility of a clean slate, or a new beginning to draw upon.
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