Pantone LLC (stylized as PANTONE) is an American limited liability company headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey, and best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color naming system used in a variety of industries, notably graphic design, fashion design, product design, textile industry, printing, as well as manufacturing and supporting the management of color from design to production, in physical and digital formats, across coated paper and uncoated paper stocks, as well as cotton, polyester, nylon and plastics.
The company is a subsidiary of X-Rite, which is a subsidiary of Veralto.
History
Pantone began in New Jersey in the 1950s as the commercial printing company of brothers Mervin and Jesse Levine, M & J Levine Advertising. In 1956, its founders, both advertising executives, hired recent Hofstra University graduate Lawrence Herbert as a part-time employee. Herbert used his chemistry knowledge to systematize and simplify the company's stock of pigments and production of colored inks. By 1962, Herbert was running the ink and printing division at a profit, while the commercial-display division was US$50,000 in debt; he subsequently purchased the company's technological assets from the Levine Brothers for US$50,000 () and renamed them "Pantone".thumb|Pantone formula guide.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 or plastic sheets, printed on one side with a series of related color swatches and then bound into a small "fan deck". For instance, a particular "page" might contain several 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 and reproduction and printing houses. Pantone recommends that PMS Color Guides be purchased annually, as their inks become yellowish over time. Color variance also occurs within editions based on the paper stock used (coated, matte or uncoated), while interedition color variance occurs when there are changes to the specific paper stock used.
X-Rite, a supplier of color measurement instruments and software, purchased Pantone for US$180 million in October 2007. X-Rite was acquired by Danaher Corporation in 2012. In September 2023, Danaher completed the corporate spin-off of its Environmental and Applied Solutions segment (which included Pantone) as Veralto.thumb|The pigment [[Prussian blue|Prussian Blue was invented in 1706 and is sometimes known as Berliner Blau]]
Adobe dispute
In 2022, a dispute between Pantone and Adobe resulted in the removal of Pantone color coordinates from Photoshop and Adobe's other design software, causing colors in graphic artists' digital documents to be replaced with black unless artists paid Pantone a separate $15 monthly subscription fee. Those that are possible to simulate through the CMYK process are labeled as such within the company's guides.
However, about 30% of the Pantone system's 1114 spot colors (as of year 2000) cannot be simulated with CMYK but with 13 base pigments (14 including black) mixed in specified amounts, called base colors. The (discontinued) Goe system has RGB, LAB, SPD values with each color and has 10 base colors while only 4 of those new: Bright Red, Pink, Medium Purple and Dark Blue. Other 6 were in the system before: Yellow 012, Orange 021, Rubine Red, Green, Process Blue and Black that in Goe were named Medium Yellow, Bright Orange, Strong Red, Bright Green, Medium Blue and Neutral Black. (PMS has 8 more basic base colors, some not monopigmented: Yellow 010, Red 032, Warm Red, Rhodamine Red, Purple, Violet, Reflex Blue, Blue 072.)
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 and military standards (to describe the colors of flags and seals). In January 2003, the Scottish Parliament debated a petition (reference PE512) to refer to the blue in the Scottish flag 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. US states including Texas have set legislated PMS colors of their flags.
Pantone Goe System
On September 5, 2007, Pantone introduced the Goe System. Goe consisted of 2058 new colors in a new matching and numbering system. In addition to the standard swatch books (now called the GoeGuide), the new system also included adhesive-backed GoeSticks, interactive software, tools, and an online community where users were able to share color swatches and information.
The Goe system was streamlined to use fewer base colors (ten, plus clear coating for reflections, only 4 base colors were new) and accommodate many technical challenges in reproducing colors on a press.
The Pantone Goe system was discontinued in November 2013, but four new base colors were added into PMS and some of new colors too, though those four base colors are harder to purchase. In addition to custom CMYK inks, Hexachrome added orange and green inks to expand the color gamut, for better color reproduction. It was therefore also known as a CMYKOG process. Hexachrome was discontinued by Pantone in 2008 when Adobe Systems stopped supporting their HexWare plugin software. In 2015 a 7-color printing system was developed, adding Violet in CMYKOGV, that can cover 90% of 1114 spot colors, while CMYK only about 60%. 1729 new colors were added, marked XGC (extended gamut coated), some colors do not have a number, like Process Blue XGC or Purple XGC. Base colors of OGV were new mono-pigment inks, pigments PO34, PG7 and PV23 were used respectively with 58°, 180° and 311° hue angles.
Pantone Color Manager allows for users of the Adobe Creative Suite and Creative Cloud as well as other software to import the most up to date information inclusive of L*a*b* numbers as well as CMYK and sRGB representations of all the various palettes (including chromatic adaptation under default D50 or D65 with 2 degree or 10 degree observer or even any ICC profile). L*a*b* numbers allow for the most accurate representation of color in a device-independent manner, but ideally X-rite InkFormulation is needed to emulate substrates and all 14 base colors of main Pantone system or 7 colors of CMYKOGV. Support is being phased out in favour of Pantone Connect plugin from Adobe Exchange of Creative Cloud. Adobe Illustrator removed five acb files (Adobe Color Books) of Pantone+ colors in 2023 when Pantone+ was deprecated by Pantone.
Color of the Year
Since 2000,
The selected color purportedly connects with the zeitgeist; for example, the press release declaring Honeysuckle the color of 2011 said "In times of stress, we need something to lift our spirits. Honeysuckle is a captivating, stimulating color that gets the adrenaline going – perfect to ward off the blues." The results of the meeting are published in Pantone View, which fashion designers, florists, and many other consumer-oriented companies purchase to help guide their designs and planning for future products.
In 2012, the color of the year, Tangerine Tango, was used to create a makeup line, in partnership with Sephora. The product line, named Sephora + Pantone Universe collection, features Tangerine Tango–embellished false lashes, nail lacquers, cream, glitters, and high-pigment lip glosses. 2013 Emerald color was reported to be out of sRGB gamut. Also new Very Peri color of 2022 is present in TCX (dyed cotton reference) and TPG (Textile Paper – "Green") form, here TCX for sRGB hex values are mentioned.
The person behind Pantone's Color of the Year, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute Leatrice Eiseman, explained in an interview how 2014's Color of the Year, Radiant Orchid, was chosen:
Pantone has said that color "has always been an integral part of how a culture expresses the attitudes and emotions of the times."
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 is not allowed. This is frequently held as a reason Pantone colors cannot be supported in open-source software and are not often found in low-cost proprietary software.
By contrast, intellectual property scholar Aaron Perzanowski claims that Pantone has no intellectual property rights over individual colors or color libraries.
See also
- Color chart – other color systems and charts
- CMYK color model
- Natural Color System (NCS), Munsell color system, and other proprietary color spaces where most consumers use swatches to make color decisions; unlike Pantone, these systems are based on underlying color models rather than pigment mixtures.
- RAL colour standard
- Spot color