History & Uses of Pantone Colours






History & Uses of the Pantone Colour Range
Pantone colours are acknowledged as a leading global colour system and offer the technology needed for accurately selecting and communicating colour selections. The Pantone colour range is used to communicate colour choices between design houses, manufacturers and retailers. The colours are used in a number of sectors, including printing, graphic design, plastics and textiles. The Pantone business is located in New Jersey in the United States and a short history of the brand is discussed below.
History of Pantone Inc
Pantone Inc was launched off the back of a small printing business in New Jersey after part-time employee Lawrence Herbert acquired the business in 1962. Lawrence changed the name of the company to Pantone and moved it away from its printing roots with virtually immediate effect. His first edition of the Pantone Matching System Printers’ Guide was published in 1963.
Pantone Inc soon became recognised as an authority on colours and systems for standardisation across the industry. At the time there weren’t any industry standards for colours and Lawrence Herbert’s expertise in biology and chemistry had reduced an inefficient colour mix procedure, which used up to 60 different coloured pigments, to a system which only used 10 or 12 pigments for a colour mix.
The basic palette of pigments offered by Pantone Inc could be used to mix an entire range of different coloured inks. This new Pantone system caused a revolution in the colour print trade, as it became possible for any business to ensure the print of standardised products for the first time in history.
Pantone Guides are colour swatches that are printed with the entire range of available colours. They enable designers and businesses to choose the colour needed for projects, and these can be matched to existing products already on the market or to create standard products or graphics that will always have the same colour and visual appearance.
Pantone colours always feature a PMS prefix coding to identify them throughout the commercial world.
Principal Uses of Pantone Colours
As stated, the most common use for Pantone colours is within the print sector. This includes the colour printer sector for commercial and domestic consumers. The Pantone palette of colours had expanded to a total of almost 1,800 by the year 2001 and could also be used for printing onto plastics.
Pantone colours have been a watchword within the print sector for decades and are commonly used for matching customer print requirements across an array of products, including letterheads, business cards, leaflets and magazines.
The Pantone Inc business has made vast technological advances over the years and is the acknowledged leader within the colour matching and colour standardisation world. Pantone has issued a number of different colour management systems to suit the needs of a variety of sectors.
Successful Use of Pantone Colours
When Pantone initially launched their colour matching service, Kodak used a variety of different printers to manufacture film packaging. This resulted in lots of different coloured yellow Kodak boxes on retailer shelves, leading customers to purchase the brighter boxes and leave the darker ones because they thought these boxes were older. Once Kodak started using the Pantone colour matching system for all printing requirements, all film packaging was produced in a standard yellow colour. This solved a niggling marketing problem for the photography business.
History & Uses of the Pantone Colour Range
Pantone colours are acknowledged as a leading global colour system and offer the technology needed for accurately selecting and communicating colour selections. The Pantone colour range is used to communicate colour choices between design houses, manufacturers and retailers. The colours are used in a number of sectors, including printing, graphic design, plastics and textiles. The Pantone business is located in New Jersey in the United States and a short history of the brand is discussed below.

History of Pantone Inc
Pantone Inc was launched off the back of a small printing business in New Jersey after part-time employee Lawrence Herbert acquired the business in 1962. Lawrence changed the name of the company to Pantone and moved it away from its printing roots with virtually immediate effect. His first edition of the Pantone Matching System Printers’ Guide was published in 1963.
Pantone Inc soon became recognised as an authority on colours and systems for standardisation across the industry. At the time there weren’t any industry standards for colours and Lawrence Herbert’s expertise in biology and chemistry had reduced an inefficient colour mix procedure, which used up to 60 different coloured pigments, to a system which only used 10 or 12 pigments for a colour mix.
The basic palette of pigments offered by Pantone Inc could be used to mix an entire range of different coloured inks. This new Pantone system caused a revolution in the colour print trade, as it became possible for any business to ensure the print of standardised products for the first time in history.
Pantone Guides are colour swatches that are printed with the entire range of available colours. They enable designers and businesses to choose the colour needed for projects, and these can be matched to existing products already on the market or to create standard products or graphics that will always have the same colour and visual appearance.
Pantone colours always feature a PMS prefix coding to identify them throughout the commercial world.
Principal Uses of Pantone Colours
As stated, the most common use for Pantone colours is within the print sector. This includes the colour printer sector for commercial and domestic consumers. The Pantone palette of colours had expanded to a total of almost 1,800 by the year 2001 and could also be used for printing onto plastics.
Pantone colours have been a watchword within the print sector for decades and are commonly used for matching customer print requirements across an array of products, including letterheads, business cards, leaflets and magazines.
The Pantone Inc business has made vast technological advances over the years and is the acknowledged leader within the colour matching and colour standardisation world. Pantone has issued a number of different colour management systems to suit the needs of a variety of sectors.
Successful Use of Pantone Colours
When Pantone initially launched their colour matching service, Kodak used a variety of different printers to manufacture film packaging. This resulted in lots of different coloured yellow Kodak boxes on retailer shelves, leading customers to purchase the brighter boxes and leave the darker ones because they thought these boxes were older. Once Kodak started using the Pantone colour matching system for all printing requirements, all film packaging was produced in a standard yellow colour. This solved a niggling marketing problem for the photography business.