A+A Concept Color
Pantone ref. closest match list available.
Published 2 /year: June & December
Target: colour & concept
Foresight: 18 months
Country of origin: Milan, Italy
FROM THE EDITOR on autumn/winter 2024-25
For 25.1 we focused on the importance of knowing how to “go beyond.” Beyond things, appearances, prejudices, intuition, instinct, creating a language beyond time.
1 Imprinted: addresses all that lies behind a memory, an image, a photograph that freezes the time in which it was taken. An evocative story that is captured in a moment, encompassing different emotions, yet it is so firmly fixed in the memory that it cannot be forgotten even if you try to. The colors are mostly faded but mixed with stronger tonalities. Play with different hues of red and blue and a touch of natural yellow and sand.
2 The Unseen: the photographer becomes a witness, looking at objects and their purely material aspect. Visible/invisible, full/empty. We focus on the actual aspect of things that nevertheless hold a story, a history that is given by the passage of time itself. The colors the new classic with colors ranging from bronze to the sepia of photos found in family archives, to the time-worn ones of walls playing with light grey and natural warm colors.
3 It’s Fantastic!: Inspired by the story and comeback of the barbie doll and her aim to breaking down prejudices, representing globalization and diversity. Loving the look of plastic but not its impact on the environment. Finding new ways to play with a bit of lightness and a lot of color. The colors are the iconographic ones of the 1990s and its plastic toys, dolls’ outfits, and homes. Pinks and reds in contrast. Childlike and fun vs modernized and minimal patterns, with the addition of different shades of purple creating a fake tone on tone.
4 Likewise: Is where the symbiotic experience and bond between twins exist. Two halves become one, reciprocity, twofold, twinning, magical reflection, mimicking, so many ways to describe something that is identical but unique. A togetherness that is extraordinary. A connective tissue that speaks strongly to ideas of “otherness”. The main colors are two: blue and yellow, in all their gradations up to gray. Two very different colors that come to a common point where they lose their identity.
5 In the Darkness: we go beyond what is our visual perception, beyond what has always been represented as “darkness” by trying to give colors and characteristics to anything dark. We eliminate the artificial light that contaminates our perception. We concentrate on admiring the beauty of a natural landscape that brings out its own hidden colors. (Don’t forget to look at this theme in the dark!!) The colors are those of the fake blacks. Those dark colors that exist in nature, photoluminescent, colors that glow in the dark cancelling out the shades and turning them into light.
6 Saisei: A new beginning, a “rebirth” the hope of a “little lightness of being” to look beyond a hidden wall, obstacles that we face and a past that we have come to terms with. We look to nature for its miracles, it’s natural cycle of life and wisdom. We look at symbols, to convey a concept without using words. It might look ordinary, but if you take a closer look, you will find that it contains its own special hidden meaning. The colors are those of the earth, warm greens and dirty browns, combined with dull pinks of preserved dried flowers and petals.