Color Palettes: From Pantone to RGB
Pantone swatches and a Pantone Color Bridge fan deck (or some other source that shows accurate CMYK values) are necessary when choosing a color palette for your school, organization, or company.
Let’s Talk Color
Recently a client was talking about his school’s new color palette. When he told me that one of the colors, when printed using four-color process, looked too yellow, I asked how he selected the CMYK values. He said he used the palette created for the website and converted to CMYK. Whether he did this using an online tool, such as Pantone Color Finder’s convert option, or using auto-convert in a program like Adobe InDesign, choosing colors this way is not ideal. Why? Three reasons; one — when picking colors for the web, we use a display, and screens present colors differently than inks on paper; two — your screen and my screen probably see colors differently; three — when Pantone and Adobe convert from RGB to CMYK, they’re giving us their version of an accurate conversion, and it’s not always spot on. The best way to manage color is to start with Pantone swatches from a Pantone swatch book or fan. The process would go something like this:
Pantone swatch books are expensive, but investing in a book or fan deck is invaluable when choosing colors. It may be cost effective to purchase a Color Bridge deck (below) since it shows both Pantone and CMYK swatches printed in the same place.
Choose your school, company, or organization’s primary color using a Pantone swatch. If you regularly print on both coated and uncoated surfaces, make sure the coated and uncoated swatches match. Some colors print very differently on coated and uncoated paper, so you may need to choose another color in coated to go with your uncoated swatch. For example Pantone 120U (uncoated) matches 122C (coated) better than 120C.
Choose a second primary color that works with your main primary color and use the same process as stated above.
Choose three or four secondary colors that work with your two primary colors, again, using Pantone swatches. One of these secondary colors should be a pop of color that you can use in small quantities to grab attention, when necessary.
Once you’re happy with your palette of Pantone swatches, use a Pantone Color Bridge deck to see if the conversions to CMYK match the Pantone swatches. A Color Bridge deck shows solid Pantone colors aside Pantone’s CMYK versions. Sometimes the match is good, but sometimes the match isn’t a match at all. Bright oranges are notorious for being difficult to reproduce while dark greens and blues are fairly easy to match using CMYK values. For this reason, you may decide to avoid using bright orange in your palette altogether to avoid headaches down the road.
If Pantone’s CMYK version of a Pantone swatch doesn’t match well, look through the deck and try to find a better match. Again, if you’re printing on mostly uncoated stock, use the uncoated Color Bridge deck. Let’s look at Pantone 120. I chose Pantone 120U and Pantone 122C, which matches that swatch better than 120C. When I look at these two Pantone swatches next to my CMYK swatches in my Color Bridge deck, I see that Pantone 114UP is the best match for both. The CMYK values are 0, 7, 93, 0. These are the values I’ll use when printing CMYK for Pantone 120U (on uncoated stock) or Pantone 122C (on coated stock).
Pantone’s Color Finder (online) is a good place to go to convert my Pantone colors to RGB and find HEX codes. Similarly, the Pantone Color Bridge includes RGB values and HEX codes under each Pantone swatch. Keep in mind that RGB color, used by computers and monitors, is very different than printed CMYK and solid Pantone. Color on screens is vibrant and can’t be truly replicated in print.
Pantone’s Color Bridge shows solid Pantone colors to the left and CMYK matches to the right. By holding solid Pantone swatches near the printed CMYK swatches in the fan deck, I’m able to find a color that matches and find the CMYK values that work best with my swatches. I don’t rely on Pantone, Adobe, or an app to create a good match.
Color management can be a challenge, even for the most seasoned designers. It takes time to go through the process of carefully choosing a color palette and finding accurate matches across media, but it will pay off if all of your printed and digital materials feel like they’ve come from the same place. Pantone swatches will make it easy to silkscreen items such as spirit-wear, banners, and mugs. If your printers’ machines are calibrated accurately, well-matched CMYK values will print predictably. It also helps to tell your printer you’re trying to match a certain Pantone color so they can make adjustments if necessary. Other than some variation from screen to screen, your digital applications will reflect the palette you’re using everywhere else.
Pantone’s Color Finder can be found here.
If you have questions about color, I’d love to help!