The Pantone Colour Matching System is a system for identifying, matching and communicating colours across product design, graphic design and marketing. It utilises a unique numbering system for identifying its colours. The system defines over 1500 colours and identifiers that are built into all the primary digital and desktop publishing systems. With the Pantone Colour Matching System, for print jobs, colour consistency is ensured, from designs to the final product.
I design for the most part in the digital space. Pantone is the standardised representation of colour from the CMYK colour process. I use my Pantone swatch book as a source of inspiration and as a technique that allows me to work with colour away from the computer. The message that I take from the use of Pantone is that when I am using RGB is that I save my swatches to maintain consistency. Pantone colours on my monitor may vary. However, I can calibrate my monitor so that the print and digital version of my project match accurately.
When I am using Photoshop, it allows me the ability to work with Pantone colours. If I need to convert an RGB colour to Pantone, then I can achieve this by using the existing tools and accessing Photoshop’s Colour Books library.