I’ve been a graphic designer for over four years now. And I’ve freelanced for 2.5 of these years. But I’ve never owned a set of Pantone color books before. There, I said it.
Here’s the thing. At $100-300 for a couple hundred pages of eye candy, my small startup business could never justify that splurge. Sure, some may argue it’s a necessity for being a print designer, and yes, at the end of the day it’s just a business expense. But after spending the first few years of my freelance business as a starving artist, I haven’t been ready to take the Pantone plunge.
In my last role at a real estate corporation, they certainly had the budget for a swatch book or two. In fact, as the Senior Designer, I was the gatekeeper of these secret rainbow codes, and don’t get me wrong, I loved every minute of it. I took every opportunity to whip out my books and confidently assure my coworkers, “Don’t worry, I’ve got a Pantone for that.“
So now that I’ve grown my business past counting nickel and dimes, I feel like it might just be time to cough up some change for these coveted colors. Here are four reasons why I’m finally ready to take the Pantone plunge:
1. You know what you’re getting.
Show of hands: how many times have you spent countless hours working on the poster of your dreams, only to send it off to print and have it come back looking like a Warhol? It literally kills me when the colors don’t turn out exactly how I envisioned them. So by using Pantone colors, you can bet your bottom dollar that your salmon pink will stay salmon pink. See a lot of people don’t know this, but Pantone is a special brand of inks used by professional printers to create an exact color. But if your printer is using CMYK values, they are only trying to match Pantone colors (which really only works about 55% of the time). So why not just avoid the frustration and go straight to the source.
2. You get the last word.
I’m sure every designer has been there. You design a logo in orange, send it off for review, and your client sees red. There’s so much guesswork when using digital platforms, with varying screen resolutions and just the plain fact that some folks are color-confused. So Pantone can come to the rescue in these sticky situations because it is essentially global language of color. Nix the guesswork, whip out a swatch, and get everyone on the same page. Bada bing bada boom.
3. It’s a crutch for the color-challenged.
I’m just gonna fess up: color theory is not my jam. Sure, I can pair a blue and a green like the next designer, but crafting eye-catching palettes is not my forte. (Confession: most of the time I have to get my inspo from Google.) So to become more independent in this process, the first step is to have my cards laid out right in front of me. Specifically, by having all 1,867 Pantone colors placed on my desk, it will be so much easier to Picasso an impactful color scheme together rather than to fish for it in my head.
4. It makes great coffee table art.
I mean, what else instantly says, “She knows what she’s doing” like having a couple of swatch books sprawled out on your desk? 😜
I wanna hear from you: what are some other reasons y’all love your Pantones?
Source: https://www.mixedmediacreations.com/ways-youre-using-pantone-wrong-fact-vs-myth/