Design Terminology Exposed! Pantone Colour System

by Adam Snow published 8th Jul 2009

Ever painted a room at home? You would expect that the tins of paint you buy to be exactly the same in their colour appearance. You wouldn't want half a room a different shade of red from the other half. Consistency is paramount.

Likewise, designers, when working with brand colours across a variety of different formats, need these brand colours to remain consistent. Part of their arsenal is a colour matching system entitled Pantone.

Pantone is a colour system designed to ensure colour consistency across a variety of different industries - primarily printing. Provided as a series of guides or 'swatches' they consist of small books of printed coloured strips very similar in style to that of decorators paint chips. Each of these coloured strips is given a reference and allows different designers, manufactures and printers - in varying locations - to match colours easily and consistently without the need to have direct contact with one another.

A large majority of the worlds print is produced through the CMYK process but obviously some colour discrepancies occur simply because of the variety of different machines and makes of ink involved. Pantone colour references allow designers and printers to ensure that the colours used are consistent and helps minimize any colour discrepancies between jobs.