What are Pantone Colours and Do You Actually Need Them?
You might have heard the term ‘Pantone’ thrown about by designers and printers and wondered WTAF they’re talking about. It’s a bit technical if you don’t live in a design studio, but let’s see if I can enlighten you in a way that makes sense.
Essentially, Pantone is a colour naming and matching system for spot colour printing. If you want a parallel, think of it like Dulux or Plascon interior paint systems, but for printing inks. Except there are a LOT more choices. About 15,000 of them, to be exact.
Wait, WTF is spot colour printing?
It’s when you’re printing with a single, pre-mixed ink on a printing press. Using a paint analogy: you grab a pre-mixed pot of Hot Pink paint and only paint with that. You’re not mixing it yourself from red, white and yellow paints. The ready-to-use colour is already mixed in the tin. In print, a press operator slaps only that colour onto the printing press when printing your thing.
The Universal Colour Language for Print
Pantone is the universal colour ‘language’ for print. The main benefit is that it allows for consistent print colour no matter which printing company you’re using, anywhere in the world. As long as they are using official Pantone inks, your brand’s ‘Cloudy Blue’ will look the same in Durbs as it does in Dublin.
Pantone colours are grouped into two systems: PMS (Pantone Matching System) for printing on paper, and FHI (Fashion, Home + Interiors) for textiles and plastics. There are even different guides for shiny paper (coated) versus matte paper (uncoated).
A Quick History Lesson
The Pantone system was devised in 1963 by Lawrence Herbert, who had a background in chemistry. He was a colour matcher at a small printing company and realized that the industry needed a way to overcome colour inconsistency.
Before digital printing, Pantone was the only way to match colours universally. But printing on a press requires high quantities to be affordable because the setup and printing plates are costly.
Neons, Metallics, and RGB Shenanigans
You know those bright colours in your DIY Canva designs or Powerpoint presentations? The ones that ‘pop’ on your screen (RGB), but when you print them on your office printer, they become kak, sad, dull versions of themselves. That’s because those neon vibrancies can’t be reproduced with standard ink. If you’re desperate for that level of brightness in print, you must use a Pantone ink.
What About Digital Printing?
When digital printing machines came along, the game changed. Most digital printers use CMYK colour (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black). They mix these four colours in different percentages to create a gamut of around 16,000 colours.
Think back to the colour wheel you made in art class:
- Blue + Yellow = Green.
- In the digital world: Cyan + Yellow = Green.
Digital printing is great for small business budgets because there are no plate or setup costs. However, CMYK colour accuracy is device-dependent. Colors can shift based on the toner brand, humidity, paper quality, or even how recently the machine was serviced. This is why the colour of your flyers is inconsistent every time you reorder them.
For large full-colour print runs CMYK is still used and is generally more accurate than CMYK digital printing if the exact same inks and mixing ratios are used. Like I said, it can get complicated.
When Do You Actually Need Pantones?
The ONLY time you really need Pantone codes is if you are printing with physical Pantone inks. This usually happens in two scenarios:
- Large Scale Packaging: Think 50,000 branded boxes where the colour must be identical.
- Luxury Branding: Strictly branded items where a logo is overprinted as a 5th colour on top of a normal print job to ensure it’s perfect.
The Golden Rule for Brand Palettes
Neither you nor your designer should be building your brand palette only using Pantones. Design should always start with CMYK. Why? Because millions of screen colours (RGB) and thousands of Pantone colours simply do not have a CMYK match. If your designer gives you a Pantone-only brand and you go to print a few business cards digitally (the only thing most small businesses can afford to start with), that colour is going to look ‘off’ or muddy.
Bottom line. It’s easier (and more accurate) to match a Pantone or RGB colour from a CMYK colour than the other way around.
If you want a neon or metallic brand, make sure you have the budget to match, because it means every single thing you print will need a custom, expensive print run.
Knowledge is Power (and Savings)
Understanding the difference between a mixed CMYK colour and a solid Pantone ink helps you make better decisions for your business. For most of us, a well-curated CMYK palette is the way to go. It’s affordable, versatile, and looks great on everything from your website to your local shop’s flyers.
But, if you’re planning on becoming the next Coca-Cola? Then ja, you’re going to want to get your Pantone ‘Red’ sorted out!
Create Your Own Colour Swatches
If you want to create your own colour swatches using your office printer (or your printing company), I have something for you. It’s a Canva template with a good selection of RGB colours that print the most accurately to CMYK. This means you can design in RGB in Canva, and the colours will print out as close as dammit to what you see on your screen. Full instructions are included. You can grab it here.