The people at Pantone know that times are hard.

“Many of us,” the color company said in a recent presentation, feel anxious, “completely overloaded and perpetually stressed.” The antidote, according to Pantone’s swatch psychologists? Blue. Specifically: Classic Blue.

For the 21st consecutive year, Pantone has named a color of the year, a trend-forecasting stunt as closely watched by the news media as it is by the industries — marketing, fashion, design — that actually traffic in visual trends.

The blue of 2020 is not Cerulean (the company’s first pick, back in 2000), Aqua Sky (2003), Blue Turquoise (2005), Blue Iris (2008) nor Serenity (which shared the 2016 title with Rose Quartz). It’s Classic Blue, a darker, more familiar shade than its cyanic siblings.

Classic Blue is the color of blueberries, a Pepsi can and the sky when it’s “that beautiful color at the end of the day,” said Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, which researches and advises companies on human responses to color. In choosing Classic Blue, the organization said it first examined what was going on in the world.