Being in the design business, my life is often times ruled by the Bible...not that Bible.......the Pantone color chart. For example, Coke red is more than just red. It's been carefully formulated and trademarked so you instantly know the brand when you see the color. Every brand tries to grab your attention and put its stamp in your brain. Starbucks green, Dunkin Donuts orange, Fed Ex purple, Pepsi blue...and the list goes on and on.
The problem with all of this is going from product to packaging to ad space, is that you need consistency. That is the key and yes, the ad head honchos can tell that their product is off. One would think that a color is a color and when you call your local printer, you should be able to tell them, "give me the graphic in PMS 485". Many a time I have given a pantone call out out for printing (or I have a sample from the client) and it is woefully nowhere near close to the happy little chip in the Pantone book. This leads to much gnashing of teeth, heckling the client (and the client heckling you) and a compromise that leaves no one happy.
Well, we shall worry no more! Pantone has brought us PantoneLIVE where, according to their website, "digital brand color lives in a secure, cloud centralized cloud ecosystem, accessible to brand owners, designers, production people, everyone in the supply chain, anywhere around the globe. PantoneLIVE saves time and money and ensures a consistent global brand identity."
If you want to see why this is a wonderful boon to the design community, check out the story of Heinz Beanz on their website. Gertrude Stein said, "a rose is a rose is a rose"....by we all know better that that!
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