2014 is the year of Purple: Pantone’s Radiant Orchid

Each year, Pantone selects a color of the year. The company just announced the 2014 Color of the Year is PANTONE® 18-3224 Radiant Orchid. This beautiful purple hue presents a great opportunity for the epilepsy community. According to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®, “An invitation to innovation, Radiant Orchid encourages expanded creativity and originality, which is increasingly valued in today’s society.”

That invitation to innovation, combined with increased resources which are being put toward epilepsy research, along with the fact that purple is the color of epilepsy awareness makes this an ideal scenario to raise the profile of epilepsy awareness in 2014.

Radiant Orchid on the Runway

This fabulous color has already hit the runways in the Spring 2014 fashion shows. You will likely see the color everywhere from Target to Bergdorf’s. As a result, you will also spot the color at the award shows, and in glitterati photos. Therefore now is the time to maximize this exposure, and align the color with epilepsy awareness.

Past colors of the year

To give you a sense of the impact this color will have, this year and in the future, here is a list of recent colors of the year:

Raising Epilepsy Awareness with Radiant Orchid

You could go out and buy something new in Radiant Orchid to raise epilepsy awareness, but there are other ways too. Here are a few suggestions:

You could change your email signature.
You could change the color of your twitter background.
You could do a blog post.
You could tell a few friends.
You could have a Radiant Orchid/Epilepsy Awareness party.

There are tons of inexpensive and fun ways to to raise epilepsy awareness with the 2014 Pantone Color of the Year: Radiant Orchid. What are your ideas? Let us know.

Jessica K. Smith Founder and CEO; Executive Director

Jessica Keenan Smith is a patient advocate and epilepsy community leader with more than 15 years of experience. As Founder and CEO of Living Well With Epilepsy and Executive Director of ASENT she bridges the gap between the scientific and patient communities, with a particular focus on the needs of the epilepsies. Jessica Keenan Smith is Founder and CEO of Living Well With Epilepsy, an award winning online resource for people affected by epilepsy to share stories and access in-depth information on the disease. Since 2009, Living Well With Epilepsy (https://livingwellwithepilepsy.com) has been featured in Forbes, Wired, NBC, NPR and the cover story of Epilepsy Advocate Magazine and has partnered with companies such as UCB, Lundbeck, Sunovion, Eisai, and more. Ms. Smith is also the Executive Director of the American Society for Experimental Neurotherapeutics (ASENT) (https://asent.org), an organization that brings together leaders from industry, academia, government and advocacy who are engaged in bringing drugs and devices to market across all neurologic disease states. In this role she is responsible for leading a successful scientific journal and annual scientific conference with speakers from all over the world.

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