Pantone just named a color after Drew Barrymore

[ResidentialBusiness]

Drew Barrymore just got her own Pantone color—and as you might expect for a woman who famously once responded to a rainstorm by dancing in the downpour and encouraging others to do the same, it’s a shade of yellow, the cheeriest primary color.

To mark the talk-show host’s 50th birthday, Pantone surprised her last week with the unveiling of “Drew Barrymore Yellow,” a soft, buttery shade Pantone says was chosen “to embody her infectious optimism, creative spirit, and uplifting presence—a hue as warm and vibrant as the woman herself.”

[Image: Pantone]

Pantone has released colors in partnership with other celebrities before, like “Team Coco Orange” for comedian Conan O’Brien in 2019, “Ultra Black” to promote rapper Nas’s 2020 single of the same name, and “Brady Blue” for former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s apparel line in 2021. Pantone’s color for Prince, “Love Symbol #2,” was chosen as an homage to the color of the purple custom-made Yamaha piano he was supposed to bring on tour before his death in 2016.

Getting your own Pantone color is more rare than getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and for celebrities, it’s done out of a need to communicate something about their brand. “Color is a language, and every color conveys its own unique message and meaning,” Pantone Color Institute vice president Laurie Pressman told Fast Company in an email. “When we work with clients it’s all about defining a color for their brand visual identity that expresses who they are and/or their brand vision.”

That takes on different forms depending on the goal of the brand, Pressman said, whether it’s in music, fashion, or production design, it’s a color meant to be emblematic of a whole creative umbrella of brands. For Barrymore, the challenge was coming up with a color without her help or knowledge.

[Image: The Drew Barrymore Show]

“With Drew Barrymore Yellow, this was an unconventional task, as it was a total and complete surprise to her for her 50th birthday,” Pressman said. “Normally, an artist would be an integral part of the process, so in this case we wanted to do this more as a symbol of her work and contribution as a creative in film, art, television, and design. We combed through and considered all these contributions as well as her personality to choose a color that reflects who she is as an artist.”

Already, yellow is used throughout The Drew Barrymore Show‘s set and promotional assets. In the profile picture for the show’s Instagram account, Barrymore smiles while wearing a yellow top and yellow earrings in front of a yellow backdrop. Clearly, she’s a fan of the color. Pantone hopes the creamy shade invites “thoughts of pleasant relaxation.”

How it’s incorporated into the show remains to be seen. Since it was planned in secret and unveiled as a surprise, “we’re still in the early planning stages,” Pressman said, but that they expect “to work closely with her team to explore ways to integrate this unique color across her show and future brand initiatives.”

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