Designers and their creative teams can shorten the time needed from concept to production using a new color tool from Pantone.
The tool is called Pantone Validated, a business-to-business licensing program that lets color hardware manufacturers (think 3-D printers, computers, tablets and ad displays) adjust color settings on their own to simulate a correct Pantone match. Initial partners include Asus, Acer, BenQ and Stratsys.
Before Pantone Validated, hardware manufacturers needed to go to Pantone to get the correct settings in order to match Pantone’s color system, Iain Pike, Pantone’s director of partner business development, explained. The licensing technology essentially puts the onus on the manufacturer to calibrate the color settings. The caveat is that the manufacturer still needs to let Pantone know what the adjustments are in order to get confirmation that the color simulation is an accurate match.
For apparel and retail design teams, the catch is that they should use equipment that has been Pantone Validated. As Pike noted, using an off-the-shelf software package might not provide the same color-matching range and hues.
While an on-screen color simulation won’t match exactly in the same way a fabric swatch would, Pike said it would be fairly close. “Pantone Validated means there has been testing of the appearance of the Pantone colors, which improves the level of confidence [of color certainty],” he said.
As for how it can help with time reduction for creative professionals in retail and apparel, Pike said the benefit of using hardware that’s Pantone Validated is the improved visual display on color representation. That can help “reduce the cycle time of developing new products,” he said, because the team won’t need to produce as many samples, not to mention build in time for delivery from the factory, to see what the color looks like on an apparel item each time they make a design change.