Design & Color
Pantone is the global authority on color, providing a universal language that enables color-critical decisions across industries. When a designer says "Pantone 186 C," everyone from the printer in Chicago to the manufacturer in Shenzhen knows exactly what red they mean.
The Pantone Matching System (PMS) is a proprietary color standardization system used in graphic design, fashion, product design, printing, and manufacturing. Each Pantone color has a unique number and formula, ensuring consistent reproduction anywhere in the world.
Pantone was founded in 1962 by Lawrence Herbert, a part-time employee at a small printing company called M&J Levine Advertising in New Jersey. Herbert, who had studied chemistry, recognized that the printing industry had no standardized system for color communication—printers mixed inks by feel, leading to inconsistent results.
Herbert purchased the company's technological assets in 1962 and renamed it Pantone. In 1963, he created the first Pantone Matching System with 500 colors. His innovation was assigning each color a unique number and providing the exact ink formula to reproduce it. This transformed an industry where "make it blue" could mean a hundred different things.
The system was revolutionary. Before Pantone, a designer in New York and a printer in Los Angeles might interpret "coral" completely differently. With Pantone, they could specify "Pantone 16-1546" and get the same color every time.
Pantone solved a fundamental problem: color is subjective, but commerce requires objectivity. When Coca-Cola needs their exact red on every can, billboard, and website worldwide, they specify Pantone 484. When Tiffany & Co. trademarked their famous blue box, it was Pantone 1837 (named for the year of their founding).
Since 2000, Pantone has selected a "Color of the Year" that reflects the global mood and influences design trends. The announcement each December becomes a cultural moment, shaping everything from fashion collections to home décor to product design.
Pantone is currently owned by Danaher Corporation, a Fortune 500 conglomerate that acquired X-Rite (Pantone's parent company) in 2012. While Pantone remains the industry standard, the company has faced controversy over its licensing model.
In 2022, Adobe removed Pantone colors from Photoshop and Illustrator, requiring users to pay a separate $15/month subscription to access Pantone libraries. This sparked debate about whether a "standard" should be paywalled—though Pantone argues the fees support ongoing color research and development.
Today, Pantone offers physical color guides (the iconic fan decks), digital tools, and consulting services. The Pantone Color Institute provides color trend forecasting for industries from fashion to automotive. Despite competition from digital color systems, Pantone remains the lingua franca of professional color communication.
The Pantone Formula Guide—affectionately called "the fan deck"—is the physical embodiment of the system. These accordion-folded booklets contain color swatches with their formulas, allowing designers and printers to physically compare colors. A complete set costs around $200 and needs replacement every 1-2 years as printed samples fade.
Despite living in a digital world, physical color matching remains essential. Screens vary, monitors drift, and true color can only be verified by eye under controlled lighting. The fan deck bridges the gap between digital design and physical production.