Skittles built a brand on a rainbow — of colour, flavour and advertising.

Skittles owns one of the most famous slogans in candy: “Taste the Rainbow,” introduced in 1994 by the agency D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles and running ever since. The product lives up to it: small, chewy, bite-sized fruit candies with a hard sugar shell, each stamped with a lowercase “s” (much like M&M’s little “m”), in a bright rainbow of colours and flavours — red (strawberry), orange, yellow (lemon), green and purple (grape in the US; historically blackcurrant elsewhere). The rainbow — of colour, of flavour, of the slogan — is the entire brand. (Honest caveats: the wordmark is custom lettering with no documented typeface, so don’t name a font; and no official brand hex is published — the rainbow values here are approximate.)

The green Skittle has a fun history worth getting right: the US green flavour was lime, changed to green apple in 2013 — and then changed back to lime in 2021, so today’s US green Skittle is lime again. On origins, the story is a little murky: Skittles were first made in the UK in the early 1970s (commonly cited as 1974, which may actually be the US trademark year), reached wide US distribution by 1979, and began US domestic production in 1982. What’s certain is that Skittles became a global favourite built entirely on that rainbow idea.

Skittles is also legendary for its surreal, absurdist advertising — the “Taste the Rainbow” spots featuring candy raining from the sky, a man whose touch turns everything to Skittles, and other gloriously weird premises. A high point was the 2019 stunt: instead of airing a Super Bowl ad, Skittles staged “Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical,” a one-time live show at a New York theatre starring Michael C. Hall. Skittles is owned by Mars, Incorporated, under its Mars Wrigley division (Mars acquired Wrigley in 2008) — a rainbow of candy backed by one of the world’s biggest confectioners.

Skittles lives in the rainbow. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Skittles’ palette is the rainbow — the bright red, orange, yellow, green and purple of the candies, arced together as the brand’s central visual idea. It’s a joyful, saturated, all-inclusive spectrum, and the rainbow motif (a literal arc in the logo) makes it instantly recognisable. The bold red wordmark anchors the brand while the full rainbow supplies the fun and energy. It’s colour used at maximum cheerfulness. The honest caveat: Mars publishes no official public brand hex for Skittles — the red is often sampled around #E21836 — so treat the rainbow values here as approximations rather than a confirmed spec.

The lesson is a rainbow as a complete brand idea. Skittles turned the rainbow into slogan, logo, palette and personality all at once — a single, joyful concept that unifies everything. For designers, it’s a reminder that a simple, strong idea (here, the rainbow) can be expressed across every brand element for maximum coherence and recognition. The takeaways: a single unifying idea can drive the palette, logo and slogan together; a full, saturated spectrum reads as joyful and inclusive; and treat specific hexes as approximate when no official spec is published.

The wordmark is a bold, italic sans — fun and dynamic.

Skittles’ bold, italic sans wordmark — deep red with a white highlight, set over a rainbow arch — is fun, dynamic and full of energy. The heavy, slightly slanted letters read as playful and lively, and the italic lean suggests motion and excitement, matching a brand built on colour and surreal fun. Paired with the rainbow, the wordmark is unmistakable and cheerful, exactly the mood of “Taste the Rainbow.” It’s loud and joyful on purpose, with enough presence to pop on a bag on a shelf. (Because the wordmark is custom lettering — resembling a bold sans but not a documented commercial font — the honest description is “a bold, italic sans,” not a named typeface.) The type behaves like the brand: playful, dynamic and full of colour.

Skittles proved a single concept can carry an entire brand.

Skittles is a lesson in building everything on one joyful idea. The rainbow isn’t just a colour scheme — it’s the slogan (“Taste the Rainbow”), the logo (a literal arc), the palette (the candy colours) and the personality (surreal, colourful fun), all unified by a single concept. That coherence is rare and powerful: every element reinforces the same idea, so the brand is instantly recognisable and endlessly extendable, from packaging to the weirdest ads imaginable. And the surreal advertising works precisely because the core idea is so simple and strong — you can build any bizarre premise on top of “taste the rainbow” and it still makes sense.

For designers and brand-builders, Skittles offers a clear takeaway: a single, strong idea, expressed everywhere, creates a coherent and flexible brand. The lessons: find one unifying concept (the rainbow) and let it drive the slogan, logo, palette and personality together; a simple, strong idea gives you room for bold, creative expression (the surreal ads); and colour, used joyfully and consistently, becomes instantly ownable. It’s also a reminder to keep the facts precise — “Taste the Rainbow” launched in 1994 (from DMB&B); Skittles began in the UK in the early 1970s and reached the US by 1979, with US production from 1982; the US green flavour went lime → green apple (2013) → back to lime (2021); and it’s a Mars Wrigley brand. Skittles turned one joyful idea into a whole brand — proof that a strong concept, everywhere, is worth more than any single element.

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