Pantone Pantone Pantone!

I’m a sucker for color. My night job is toning color pictures so that they print just right, so I generally think about color in a more scientific, CMYK-value way than most people have to. And because of this, I’m a BIG sucker for anything involving Pantone, a company that (this is simplified) way back when was the first to come out with a coherent and universalized system for graphic designers to match colors. And it’s such a pretty way of doing things!

I especially like it when Pantone and fashion interact, as the worlds of proprietary color spaces and calibrated printers so rarely get to be seen as glamorous. The Pantone Color Institute comes out with a top-ten analysis of the colors in the New York fashion weeks, which we mentioned a while ago, and they’re now collaborating with California brand SeaVees on a line of shoes based on a ’60s-style palette chosen from the Pantone lineup.

So in honor of the new shoes (left), here’s some interesting things that happen when fashion and graphic designers try to turn their love of proprietary color spaces into product.

Pantone glasses: note, this website plays an annoying song on repeat.

Pantone-inspired coffee color (or colour, if you’re British or just affected) matcher, so your lover never fucks up your coffee again.

Or you could just get the normal mugs.

A collaboration with Gap on 5th Avenue last month.

Pantone cufflinks by Sonia Spencer, for that one graphic designer out there somewhere who makes a lot of money. I’m sure there’s at least one. There’s probably a few more who married rich, anyway.

Messenger bags by W2 Products.

And that’s about all we have time for today. Good luck on your finals, graphic design students everywhere! I hope that you aren’t at the point where color swatches make you flinch! And many thanks to If It’s Hip, It’s Here for their Pantone scouting, and thanks Jiv, too!