What Is Pantone?
Pantone is the name of a company that is located in New Jersey. Pantone created a system of color matching that is used as a standard in much of the print industry. It maintains a complex system of labeling colors and keeping a formula for their composition. Though it is mainly used in the printing industry, other manufacturers of products like paint, plastic and fabric often use the system.
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History
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Pantone was started in 1963 as a company that manufactured color samples for cosmetics. Lawrence Herbert then bought the company and switched the focus of color-matching to the print industry. This helped solve a lot of problems in the graphic design industry. No two humans perceive color in the exact same way, so it is not easy to perfectly match colors. Pantone became an authority on color when it created this standardized system of matching colors.
Color Guides
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Pantone is most known for its color guides. These are swatches of different colors printed onto strips of paper. Each strip contains various tints and tones of colors in the same family. Each color block has a certain code listed. This code can be used in the printing process to print the exact color that you see on the sheet. This is an incredible tool that allows you to match a color exactly.
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Universality
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Pantone is the standard world leader in color matching. Many countries, including the U.S. cite specific Pantone colors in defining the official colors of their flags. Also, many companies have specific rules governing their promotional and branding materials in reference to the colors they utilize. These are almost always Pantone colors.
New Developements
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In 2006, Pantone joined forces with a paint company, producing exterior and interior paints that correlate with some of their colors. Pantone is involved in all aspects of color, even producing color trend forecasts for the next year. These forecasts are invaluable to designers and printers in the industry. Pantone also announces a "Color of the Year" and announced cerulean blue as the color of the millennium.
Products
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These are just a few of the products and technology that Pantone has gained success from: Pantone matching system, four-color process guides, Hexachrome, Goe, Pantone Smart, Pantone View, ColorCue and TheRightColor. For more information about products and services, see the Resources section.
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Resources
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