Pantone Totally Explained

Everything about Pantone totally explained

Pantone Inc. is a corporation headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey, USA. The company is best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, primarily printing, though sometimes in the manufacture of colored paint, fabric and plastics.
On 23 August 2007, X-Rite Inc, a supplier of color measurement instruments and software, announced it had reached an agreement to purchase Pantone Inc for $180 million. The deal was completed in October 2007.

Overview

Pantone, as it's today, was founded in 1962, when the company—at the time a small business that manufactured color cards for cosmetics companies—was bought by Lawrence Herbert, who had been an employee since 1956. He immediately changed its direction, developing the first color matching system in 1963. Herbert remains the CEO, Chairman, and President of the company.
The company's primary products include the Pantone Guides, which consist of a large number of small (approximately 6×2 inches or 15×5 cm) thin cardboard sheets, printed on one side with a series of related color swatches and then bound into a small flipbook. For instance, a particular "page" might contain a number of yellows of varying tints.
The idea behind the PMS is to allow designers to 'color match' specific colors when a design enters production stage—regardless of the equipment used to produce the color. This system has been widely adopted by graphic designers, reproduction and printing houses for a number of years now. Pantone recommends that PMS Color Guides be purchased annually as their inks become more yellow over time. Color variance also occurs within editions based on the paper stock used (coated, matte or uncoated), while inter-edition color variance occurs when there are changes to the specific paper stock used.

Original Pantone Color Matching System

The Pantone Color Matching System is largely a standardized color reproduction system. By standardizing the colors different manufactures in different locations can all refer to a the Pantone system to make sure colors match without direct contact with one another.
   One such use is standardizing colors in the CMYK process. The CMYK process method of printing color by using four inks—cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The vast majority of the world's printed material is produced using the CMYK process, and there's a special subset of Pantone colors that can be reproduced using CMYK. Those that are possible to simulate through the CMYK process are labeled as such within the company's guides.
   However, most of Pantone system 1,114 spot colors colors created can't be simulated with CMYK but with a 13 base pigments (15 including white and black) mixed in specified amounts.
   The Pantone system also allows for many 'special' colors to be produced such as metallics and fluorescents. While most of the Pantone system colors are beyond the printed CMYK gamut, it's only in 2001 that Pantone began providing translations of their existing system with screen based colors (Screen based colors use the RGB—red, green, blue—system to create various colors). And the GOE system has RGB and LAB values with each color.
   Pantone colors are described by their allocated number (typically referred to as for example 'PMS 130'). PMS colors are almost always used in branding and have even found their way into government legislation (to describe the colors of flags). In January 2003, the Scottish Parliament debated a petition (reference PE512) to refer to the blue in the Scottish flag (saltire) as 'Pantone 300'. Countries such as Canada and South Korea and organizations such as the FIA have also chosen to refer to specific Pantone colors to use when producing flags. U.S. States including Texas have set legislated PMS colors of their flags.

Pantone Goe System

On September 5, 2007 Pantone introduced the Goe System. Goe consists of over 2,000 new colors in a brand new matching and numbering system. In addition to the standard swatch books (now called the GoeGuide), the new system also includes adhesive-backed GoeSticks, interactive software, tools and an online community where users are able to share color swatches and information.
The Goe name has no meaning, however the swatchbooks are well thought out as compared to the original Pantone system whose new colors were added ad-hoc. It is also streamlined to use fewer base colors (10 + Clear coating for reflections) and accommodates many technical challenges in reproducing colors on a press.

Other Products

In mid-2006 Pantone, partnering with Vermont-based Fine Paints of Europe, introduced a new line of interior and exterior paints. The color palette uses Pantone's color research and trending and has more than 3000 colors.

Intellectual property

Pantone asserts that their lists of color numbers and pigment values are the intellectual property of Pantone and free use of the list isn't allowed. This is frequently held as a reason why Pantone colors can't be supported in Open Source software such as GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and are not often found in low-cost software. It has been claimed that "it seems as if the company is being intentionally unclear" but it's acknowledged that "the simplest claim would be trademark misappropriation or dilution towards someone who produced a color palette marketed as compatible with Pantone's". However, Pantone palettes supplied by printer manufacturers can be obtained freely, and depending on supplier, don't come with usage restriction beyond sales ban on hard copy of the palette.
Pantone also possesses

patent 5,734,800

, a six-color Hexachrome printing system.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Pantone'.

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