AKIPRESS.COM - The Pantone Color Institute picked the deep purple "Ultra Violet as color of the year 2018.

The color wasn't chosen because it's regal, though it resembles a majestic shade. It was chosen to evoke a counterculture flair, a grab for originality, ingenuity and visionary thinking, Pantone Vice President Laurie Pressman told AP.

"We are living in complex times," she said. "We're seeing the fear of going forward and how people are reacting to that fear."

Pressman wasn't keen on talking politics. The color, she said, playing out in home design, industrial spaces and products, fashion, art and food, reflects the idea of living not inside the box or outside the box but with no box at all. Specifically, she called the color "that complexity, that marriage, between the passionate red violets and the strong indigo purples."

The 2018 color of the year follows 2017's "Greenery," a grassy fresh, revitalizing shade that reflected new beginnings.

The purple choice, a la Prince and the glam rock of David Bowie — both of whom died in 2016 — speaks to rebellion, finding new ways to interpret our lives and surroundings, Pressman said. It also speaks to the pleasing calm of Provence and its purple flower fields.