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Every once in a while, an unbelievably specific color gains momentum in current graphic design trends. Even more rarely, that color reveals itself to be incredibly versatile. Case in point: the new hot color, a flaming orange-pink.

Because my husband and I are clearly insane, we painted our dining room walls five different times in different custom-mixed shades in order to get the tricky balance between a saturated orange and bold pink that has been used eloquently by several of Print’s New Visual Artists this year: 

 Anniversary issue of Tuli & Savu, a Finnish poetry publication. Art direction, illustration, and layout by Lotta Nieminen.

 

 

It's a color that would warm the cockles of Josef Albers’ heart. It has a jaw-dropping capacity for change as you swap different colors into its proximity: Black or darker backgrounds give it a vibrant, surprisingly elegant restraint, which is particularly useful when printing with a limited number of colors. On the web, Armin Vit of UnderConsideration.com uses flame as a distinctive color-signature to carve out the Quipsologies sub-brand.

 

Surprisingly enough, a color this close to emergency-orange doesn’t scream urgency unless injudiciously paired with lighter shades, particularly white. For School of Visual Arts’ summer program !mpact: Design for Social Change, a flame-imbued background subtly underlines the urgency of the mission with a coolness and balance surprising for such a hot shade.

 

 
!mpact Design for Social Change workshop at School of Visual Arts, summer 2010, via GOOD

Even more unpredictably, the flame loses some critical increment of tension when surrounded by too much white without any other colors. In the identity for the AsiaNow conference, flame seems leached of its vitality when it gets progressively lighter:

 

 

 

Website for 2010 Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

 

Color trends move like flash-fires among graphic designers. Unlike designers of physical products, there’s no need to agonize over fabric supplies or consumer taste-forecasting months (or years) in advance of sinking an investment in one color or another. Graphic designers can catch the fever of any color, any time, and put it into wider circulation almost immediately – and more hot designs will fan the flames still further. Consider designer Nick Hardeman’s infographic of motion [via visualcomplexity.com] in Notorious B.I.G’s video for “Mo Money Mo Problems,” kicking it back to 1997 and a flame-colored jumpsuit B.I.G wears in the video: