Pantone’s Past en Present

I just received word from Pantone: They’ve got an exiting new feature on Pantone.com. What could this be? Well, a forum! Ah, very ‘exciting’ indeed… for Pantone that is! In Europe Pantone used to be a company that wasn’t exactly known for it’s openness towards it’s costumers. I suppose this is more of the X-Rite spirit as they bought Pantone almost two years ago. I totally agree with X-Rite new direction as the old Pantone was no friend of the designer.

For years the old Pantone CMYK-guides were not just ‘faulty’ but simply dead wrong and Pantone knew it. The CMYK-values were based upon not-so-transparent American standards. For us designers in the ROW (Rest Of World) there simply was no way to replicate the Pantone CMYK-colors using Pantone’s own CMYK-values. Because, you see, not only are there different kinds of CMYK’s (SWOP, IsoCoated, Euroscale), but in Europe and Asia we also use different CMYK inks. Pantone knew all this but they didn’t really care enough to produce good CMYK-guides.

Until 2007. Suddenly Pantone demonstrated the Pantone color bridge coated EURO. This guide is based upon European inks, was produced using CTP (Computer-To-Plate) and has been printed using ISO 12647-2. Within this standard Pantone used ISO-certified inks (ISO 2846-1). Now what do those numbers stand for? Easy, the new guide was printed using highly detailed and documented standards. Everything in the process of printing has been documented and can be replicated by a (good) printer. Pantone finally realized it would be profitable to follow the documented worldwide standards. After the ‘Coated bridge’ Pantone gave us the ‘Uncoated bridge’ for printing CMYK on uncoated (ISO certified) paper. So if you happen to own any of the older Pantone CMYK-Guides you might just as well dump them. They’re totally useless.

I have to say I hope Pantone (under X-Rite’s guidance) continues to surprise us with new and helpful ways to get our job done better. This new direction is so much better. And I suppose the new GoeBridge is Pantone’s way of telling us they’re PMS guides really need replacing as well.