The One Company That Owns 2,390 Colors

Video written by Ben Doyle

[deathpigeon]

"God created the world in seven days, and, on the eight day, he called Pantone to put color into it" has the same vibes as, "God created Man. Colt made man equal."

[prettypic]

I’ve been going to school for digital archives, and we had a whole unit on how to ensure that our scanners accurately replicate colors and how to calibrate them. There was A LOT of “take care of your calibration reference sheet because you’re probably going to be working at an underfunded public institution and replacing it will probably blow your budget for the year.”

[michael-michaelmotorcycle]

As someone who’s been in the industrial/manufacturing printing industry for nearly 20 years Pantone is a double-edged sword. I’ve worked on printing equipment from flexography to digital. Using hand mixed ink to apply onto aluminum cans at 2200 cans a minute to digitally controlled print heads to print on paper at 1000 feet a minute.
The end-company uses Pantone as a weapon to hold you accountable to match pre-approved standard’s within certain tolerances within the gamut. We use scanners that digitally read the color and it compares to the targeted color ‘window’. However the end-company refuses to buy their own scanners and uses the naked eye to compare then they complain and then ask for discounts on their production runs.

[Avendesora]

I'm surprised you didn't mention how Adobe requires a separate subscription to use Pantone palettes in their programs

[MitchBurns]

That mug you made was actually kind of cool. Pop a flat piece of clear plastic on the broken half so that it holds liquid and I think it would sell.

[tyguya]

These half as interesting videos are getting longer. Three quarters as interesting.

[herranton]

About 15 years ago I was driving a truck for a courier company. One of our clients wanted me to pick up 13 pallets of parts that they had just sub contracted out to be painted and bring them back to them. The parts were for John Deere.

When I got to the location, I called the guy and told him the parts weren't right and asked him what I should do. Technically it wasn't my problem, but they were good clients and I wanted to do right by them. The color was _obviously_ not John Deere green.
He told me that it wasnt just 13 pallets, the whole order was not like 50 pallets of parts. I just got 13 because that is all that fit in my truck.

Unfortunately for them, the only company capable of stripping the powder coating in time for them to make their deadline was clear on the other side of the city. Probably a 40 mile drive. I spent all week ferrying John Deere parts from the powder coater to the furnace, to the powder coater, and back to our client.

I probably made like $4000 on just that one screw up. Haha.

Thanks for coming toy Ted talk.

[five-toedslothbear]

The reason that Pantone can have a color gambit that is bigger than RGB or CMYK is that you can print things with either process colors which are CMYK, or you can use a spot color where the ink is formulated specifically for that color. When it’s really important to have the exact color the printing might actually have CMYK process colors plus additional channels for a spot color that would be specified by Pantone. This works because the pigments in the CMYK process inks have certain characteristics and only mix so well, but if you’re making a spot color you have all kinds of pigments that you can use to make that color exactly perfect.

[cyborg]

Seen something really pink? RIP in peace Tom Scott's weekly uploads.

[GradythaStudips]

Once you've spent 2 minutes doing anything with color, you can easily guess by the title it's gonna be pantone

[Derekzparty]

Monitor colors may vary on uncalibrated screens, but the 6 letter hex code for a color is that exact 24 bit color.
If you want even higher color precision high end professional monitors offer 30 bit color giving over 1 billion possible colors, 8 letter hex code

[taukid]

3:00 That's basically how the board game Hues and Cues works.

[jessetorres]

I remember in my high school art class that if you had a black background & random lines or spots of every color on the color wheel spread out on it, our eyes typically are drawn to yellow 1st then red 2nd. This is why most fast food places use either yellow & red or orange as their logos since it draws the eyes of people in quickly when they're driving.

[furTron]

I suggest to switch to RAL colours.
RAL is a non profit organisation, based in Germany and widely recognised in industry applications

[mjblack]

In archaeology (and maybe other fields) there are Munsell books for identifying the color of soil. So very similar idea for a very similar price point, but for only “dirty” colors

[temp_name_change_later]

the editing on these videos is getting dangerously good, at this rate it’s going to have to be called two-thirds as interesting

[Generalth]

Hi Sam!

Amy did good work reviewing all the rod and cone cells in every person's eyes so she could write this script. She deservers a raise!

[jhonbus]

The artist Stuart Semple occasionally sells paints on his website designed to mimic the trademarked colours of a few companies (eg Tiffany) that have been seen as over-aggressively defending their colour trademarks to the detriment of art and artists. Same guy that responded to Anish Kapoor's exclusive licence to Vantablack by inventing an even blacker paint and selling it cheaply to anyone who wants it _except_ Anish Kapoor.

[facundootero]

There's also a non-profit called RAL in Germany who does the same or similar thing to Pantone, the problem is that their swatches are also expensive. So it's not just because Pantone wants to make a lot of money only, but also colour is hard to reproduce on different materials and places

[johngaltline]

The video does a good job explaining how Pantone is used on the consumer end, ex you can specify a color you want and tell your printer or digital designer or whoever to match that color. That's only half the process, and generally not the folks that will buy swatch books. At the printing end, every machine prints a little differently, and also varies when printing on different materials. the coffee mugs at the end are almost a real thing. I've got several at the shop that have a grid of squares with CMYK values bumped by one point in each square, used to calibrate the printer to the Pantone.