At the helm of the creative industry is the Pantone Color Institute™ the international authority on colour. Their swatch-style Pantone books are never far from our designers. In February, Pantone’s scientists and trend experts completed a regular review of their Pantone Matching System. This hit the news as it added 224 mixed colours and five base ink colours to the system.

You may ask, “well, that’s just more colours to choose from, isn’t it?” It is, although there are new formulations to some colours – that’s the specific recipe of base inks used to create spot colours.

Why are there new base inks?

The five new base inks have a lower environmental impact. They contain soybean and other vegetable oils, have no reportable hazardous and a low migration of VOCs, (volatile organic compounds), where indirect food contact occurs. That is certainly an honourable goal!

Also, Pantone have also reduced their number of base ink colours from 18 to 11. For some spot colours this has led to more base inks being used in the recipe, although sometimes at very low levels (0.1%).

What does this mean for my brand and print jobs?

The way that a business visually presents itself – across all marketing channels – should be unified. Inconsistent brand colours can lead to a lack of cohesion and diminish the brand’s overall impact. This is a cornerstone of marketing as it’s key to maximising brand recognition, reputation and trust. You don’t want let your brand colours to run away from you!

According to Pantone, the new base inks have not changed how existing Pantone colours look and the Pantone Master Standards’ digital values remain the same.

Printing in full colour (CMYK) remains unaffected by the Pantone update. However, to retain brand consistency you still need to ensure that you are communicating the CMYK values from your brand guidelines to the designers.

Comparison of U155-159 in the legacy and current Pantone Matching System.

Reflex Blue has changed

This is a popular colour for logos, a familiar royal blue with a deep blue-violet hue. Up until February, Reflex Blue was supplied as a base ink, so would come ready mixed. However, Reflex Blue was a challenging colour to print as it could easily appear purple, dried slowly, was easily rubbed, and could cause marking on a printing press. Reflex Blue is now formulated from a better-behaved combination of the pigments Carbazole Violet and Phthalo Blue. Even though this and other colour recipes have changed (because there are new inks) the appearance of the Pantone colours according to Pantone should remain stable. However because there is a change in its formulation it is possible you could see a subtly different in shade in your brand assets, i.e. logo.

Reflex Blue is now formulated from pigments Carbazole Violet and Phthalo Blue rather than being supplied as a base ink

Getting colour correct

We know that colour accuracy is important. It is however somewhat of an art because beyond Pantone’s pigment values, there are many factors that influence how colour is perceived:

• Paper colour
• Surface properties of the paper, e.g. coated Silk paper versus more porous uncoated paper
• The thickness of the ink applied to the surface
• The manufacturer of the base inks
• Temperature when printed
• How you store the printed items
• The printing process.

Indeed, the Pantone swatch-style guides themselves are printed, so intrinsically reflect all of these variables too!

What do you need to do to stay on top of colour developments?

• Don’t compromise your brand consistency through colour, stay true to marketeer values!
• Complete a regular review of your brand guidelines. Ensure that the CMYK values for your brand colours are correct and communicated to your printers when printing full colour jobs.
• If you didn’t get as far as creating brand guidelines when your logo was first conceived, don’t worry it’s a practical and productive addition to your brand assets at any time.
• Begin with the end in mind, which is great advice for most things (courtesy of Dr. Stephen R. Covey). What do you want your printed item to achieve, who is it aimed at, and how will it get to them? We can look at paper stocks that respond to your brief and your values, such as the sustainable FSC certified paper that we would always advocate.
• Use printed samples to match to – particularly for projects printed in a spot colour, perhaps printed stationery, it’s valuable to get a sheet that you’re particularly happy with, to the production team for your new project, even when no other variables change other than it being the same project printed at a different time. If other variables also change, like the production term or the paper stock, then this approach is essential.
• Graphic designers are specialists here to help you, and that support can certainly start with Systematic. You’re in safe, creative hands!