Pantone Matching System
The Pantone Matching System is a proprietary library of named spot colors and recipes for specifying, mixing, and matching printing inks.
Spot color: A premixed ink printed as a distinct color rather than formed from process-color dots. Pantone colors are specified as individual inks, separate from the four process-color plates.
Color: A perceptual quality arising from light spectra and the visual system. Pantone names and organizes color appearances that people use to specify print.
Branding: The practice of creating and managing a distinctive identity for an organization, product, or service. Organizations use Pantone specifications to keep signature colors consistent across printed materials.
CMYK color model: A subtractive color model using cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks to reproduce colors in print. CMYK builds colors from process inks, while Pantone spot specifications call for distinct premixed inks.
Color standard: An agreed reference or procedure for describing, measuring, or reproducing color. Pantone is a commercial example of a color standard used across print workflows.
Pantone Formula Guide: A Pantone reference book showing spot-color swatches and ink-mixing formulas. It presents the physical samples and recipes used to identify many Pantone colors.
Color space: A mathematical model that assigns coordinates to colors within a defined range. Digital color coordinates and physical Pantone inks describe colors in different ways.
Packaging printing: The production of printed graphics and information on product packaging. Spot inks can reproduce package colors consistently across materials and print runs.
Hexadecimal color: A notation using hexadecimal digits to specify red, green, and blue values for digital color. Hex codes specify screen colors rather than a physical Pantone printing ink.
Color reproduction: The production of a visual color match in a medium or device different from the original. Pantone specifications help coordinate reproduction, but substrate and process still affect the result.