Unless you’re a design professional you may not know about Pantone colors. But you surely have seen and/or used a Pantone color in your life. 

You may have noticed that when you walk into a furniture store that many of the staged rooms display throw pillows and other accessories in a particular shade of pink or a deep blue. Then in the housewares store you notice the same shade of pink or blue on the pricey new enamel cookware they are featuring. Then you’re in Sephora buying lipstick and you see that all the new packaging for your cosmetics brand is that same pink or blue. How could that be? Are you imagining they are the same?

No, you’re not imaging it. What you are seeing is the Pantone color effect. Those manufacturers are most likely using the current Pantone color of the year. 2021 colors are yellow - called Illuminating - and Ultimate Gray. Have you seen these colors online and in shops?

Pantone is a company that has been known since the 1960s for its development of the Pantone Matching System, a standardized system of color formulas that enables any manufacturer or designer anywhere in the world, whether producing clothing, housewares, or graphics, to precisely choose and reproduce a given color. The Pantone Matching System comprises 1,867 colors created by combining 13 base pigments. 

According to the Pantone website, “More than 10 million designers and producers around the world rely on Pantone products and services to help define, communicate and control color from inspiration to realization – across various materials and finishes for graphics, fashion and product design.”

Stay tuned for Part 2 – we’ll delve into this year’s colors of the year and how (or if) you should use them.

Want to read more about color? Read this blog post – Fear Not a Pop of Orange.