Pantone adds 224 shades to its matching system as Sherwin-Williams names Celery its 2027 Color of the Year

Pantone expands its matching library with 224 new colors and a more-is-more pitch

Pantone unveiled 224 new colors this week, the first additions to its matching system since 2022, when the company added warm grays and dark neutrals. The expansion lifts the Carlstadt, New Jersey-based company's library to nearly 9,000 colors, with the new shades framed around bolder hues and unusual combinations that the company says reflect shifting design trends. The 2026 colors are available as a $482 color bridge guide set and as a $90 spot color chip set.

For designers spec-ing print and packaging, the new swatch books are the concrete artifact to order; a Color Palette Generator and a HEX to RGB Converter are useful for translating any picked swatch into digital tokens on the same day.

Sherwin-Williams crowns Celery its 2027 Color of the Year and extends the herbal-green streak

The Sherwin-Williams Trendsight Team and HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams announced Celery (SW 6421 / HGSW 6421) as their joint 2027 Color of the Year. Described as a light herbal green with warm yellow undertones, Celery is positioned for homeowners who want freshness and energy while preserving the soothing qualities that have made nature-inspired colors popular in interiors. The supporting 2027 palette pairs Celery with light neutrals, deeper greens and blues, warmer reds and browns, and other subdued accents.

For practitioners, the implication is that any 2027 spec sheet built around soft greens and earthy contrasts now has a named anchor; an RGB to HSV Conversion and Accessibility Contrast walk-through helps check how those warmer yellow undertones land against neutral backgrounds.

Miami panel debates whether color itself counts as architecture

At an Arca showroom talk in Miami, interior designers Kati Curtis and Tamara Feldman joined Tony Piloseno, owner of Orlando-based company Tonester Paints, for a conversation moderated by Dezeen US editor Ben Dreith. The group framed their discussion around whether color is architecture in a moment shaped by dopamine design and AI tools, and they pointed to olive greens and a shade called Black Martini as colors gaining traction in contemporary American homes. The panel agreed that rich, dark colors are in, but framed the most important element of contemporary color usage as experience and how people re-evaluate spaces.

For interior-facing work, the takeaway is that named dark accents like Black Martini need to be tested against walls and lighting, not against a swatch alone, which is where a Color Contrast Checker for Web Design: Design System Tips primer transfers cleanly to printed mood boards and finish samples.

Stockholm's historic palette resurfaces as an 18-shade Historiska Hem and Toniton collection

Historiska Hem and Swedish color and design studio Toniton presented an autumn collection of 18 carefully selected shades drawn from Stockholm's architecture, interiors and changing light. The collaboration merges Historiska Hem's documentation of the city's older homes, from original joinery and painted ceilings to natural materials, with Toniton's approach to color. For designers working on Scandinavian briefs or heritage renovations, the release is a concrete palette to request rather than a mood description; converting any sample into print-ready CMYK values is the next step, and a Convert CMYK to RGB for Screen Preview in Your Browser guide covers that round-trip.

Corpus and Target bring a color-forward packaging system to mass retail

Chroma by Corpus, a new line of body wash and deodorant from Corpus Naturals, launched inside Target Beauty Studio with packaging designed by Marc Atlan. The range uses a homey palette that centers the joy of color as the visual hook for a mass-market retailer. For packaging designers, the move shows a budget retailer accepting a more saturated color system than usual, which raises the bar for color accuracy between the printed bottle and its on-screen comp, where an RGB to HEX for Accessible Color Contrast reference and a RGB to CMYK Converter are the practical next steps.

Color shows up in restored Wright interiors, watch collaborations and bar architecture

Three further 2026 projects put named color decisions in front of practitioners. A restored Frank Lloyd Wright concrete Usonian house in Michigan retains its cherokee red floors and hand-cast concrete blocks throughout. Jeff Koons adapted his Balloon Dog into a 42 mm Hublot Classic Fusion watch.

Studiomateriality designed ochotac, a Mexican-inspired bar in Athens, with a lucha libre visual language built around green-lit stainless steel. Each case rewards a different tool: the Wright interior invites a RGB to CMYK for Web Design: Prep Colors for Print conversion for any reproduction, the Hublot-Koons collaboration is a brand-color accuracy question where a HEX to RGB Converter helps confirm exact values, and the Athens bar's saturated green lighting is the kind of dark-accent scenario that a Color Contrast Checker is built for.

What to watch after September 17, 2026

Pantone's 224-color expansion and Sherwin-Williams's Celery announcement both arrive with physical reference products that designers can order now: Pantone's $482 color bridge guide set and $90 spot color chip set for the new 2026 colors, and the 2027 Celery palette documentation from Sherwin-Williams and HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams. The Historiska Hem and Toniton collection launches this autumn with 18 named shades drawn from Stockholm. No further release dates or version numbers were printed in the evidence lines reviewed, so any next step beyond these announcements should be tracked against the publishers' follow-up coverage.