For over twenty years, Pantone, through its Color of the Year program, has selected a color (or colors, 2021!) that reflects the latest color influences and highlights how what is happening in our culture, globally, can be expressed through color. The pick for 2026 is PANTONE 11-4021 Cloud Dancer, a “billowy white” intended to calm and clear the mind to allow for relaxation, creativity, and innovation.[1]
According to Pantone, Cloud Dancer “invites a space where function and feeling intertwine to build atmospheres of serenity and spaciousness, providing a refuge of visual cleanliness that inspires well-being and lightness.” As a hue in the white family, Cloud Dancer “can adapt, harmonize, and create contrast, bringing a feeling of airy lightness to all product applications and environments, whether making a standalone statement or combined with other hues.”
Like Pantone, branding experts understand that color is its own language and that color and context are linked in the psyche. In addition to building a brand’s aesthetic, the right color can capture the consumer’s attention and influence purchasing decisions or brand loyalty by eliciting a select emotional response, or conveying a message based in color theory.
Cloud Dancer, including as a “blank canvas” color, is expected to influence a variety of consumer goods and services, from clothing, home furnishings, and consumer electronics to website wallpapers and online brand experiences.
If you are considering using Cloud Dancer or another new color in your branding, remember that others may already have rights in the same or similar color and that your choice could invoke regulatory or other violations. Before moving forward with a shift in branding color, we encourage you to consider the following:
- Conduct a clearance search to determine whether the color(s) of interest are available for trademark use with your goods and services;
- Check existing registrations for any current color marks to see if they are due for maintenance. If so, consider adopting the new color(s) for only select models/SKUs, to allow you to maintain your existing registrations if they remain of interest;
- Consult with any relevant industry and regulatory teams before adopting a new color scheme to confirm that it is neither misleading of the nature of your product, nor likely to create consumer confusion or to cause harm.
Federal registration of color marks (particularly, single color marks and marks for basic colors like white) continues to be a challenge. To improve your brand’s chances of registering a color mark, remember to instruct consumers to look for your brand’s color in the marketplace, use the color consistently to reinforce its association with your brand, and avoid referring to any functional attributes of the color (e.g., the connotation of potential harm or danger associated with the color red) since functional color marks are never registrable.
[1] Pantone Introduces the Pantone Color of the Year 2026: PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer
