Feeling good is what it’s all about, according to recent fashion predictions by Pantone for the Summer of 2009. People will be most attracted to colors that reflect individuality and personality, colors that make people feel good about who they are. Color will be more than just a shade, but the very mood and style we wear to face the world.

Color is the essential ingredient in design and style, the very flavor that brings out the mood of design. Fashion and home furnishings are flavored with color, bringing out emotions and style. Color sets the mood like smell reminds a memory, as suggestive as a dream or the scents of the wind itself.

The Pantone Color Forecast features a string of “isms,” each designed with a personality that’s knows what it wants. Since personality comes in all styles of faces, there’s sure to be something this year that lights up your mood, whatever you are feeling in the moment. Step out on summer with designs that play with your personality. Dance the colors that suit your mood.

In an classical arts style that just seems to find its way naturally into any art opening, Classic-ism is nearly colorless save for a medium stripe of blue that suggests restraint and a polite calming grace. It’s subtle yet stylish, perfect for understating the obvious. Classically intoned, this color is sure to bring tradition into fashion and design.

Striking out more boldly, Today-ism steps into brightness with a proper balance of deep red hues and a somber brown, creating a playful dance to attract the eye. It screams right now, lighting up color with an immediacy that brings out a room.

On the experimental side, Fetish-ism experiments with carnal desire, seducing freedom with deliciousness. It’s boldly suggestive, yet subtly coy, like a wink in the bright lights of the night. It’s perfect for when you are feeling dangerously playful, ready to turn heads that follow you everywhere around the room.

Stepping into a stranger mood, Surreal-ism playfully creates the unexpected in a play of creativity. It plays with your imagination with all the brightness of a jewel, dancing and shimmering like moonlight on the water. It’s imaginatively artistic, yet dreamingly suggestive. Shining like a wine glass in the hues of the moonlight, this color dances creativity in the dreamy lights of the dance floor.

Turning absurdity upside down, Absurd-ism frees color from the binds of conformity and rationality, creating a playful twist on the disproportionate. Bending the rules of color in an innovative twist, it breaks out of boring with a playfulness that laughs at the color brown. It’s the kind of color that’s willing to stand on its head, tell a joke in a library, dance even when there’s no music playing.

Independent-ism strikes out on its own with a boldness that’s unique enough to turn heads. Why look like anyone else when style can be as bold as we can be? It’s the color we wear when we want to be ourselves, sure of who we are. It’s like stepping into a room and knowing what you want.

Female-ism celebrates the woman and everything that makes her beautiful. With medium pastels, it celebrates the female being with positivity, a dash of medium color with just a touch of retro glamor hues.

Each of these colors suggest a personality and a mood, a way of making style our own. Design plays on the emotions, changing like moods with the dress, the drapes and the color of the cake. It’s a dance that depends on the playful or the serious, the bold or the subtle. Design and color mean more than just occasion and circumstance, but the very mood and style we wish to step into for the moment.