On Jan 1, 2010, at 3:59 PM, Lavolta Press wrote:
On 1/1/2010 12:39 PM, Marjorie Wilser wrote:
Then there's the Pantone system for printing. Trouble is, they change
the colors according to popularity, and the swatch books are
expensive.
Pantone doesn't change the colors as far as I know, or at least not
unless it's over a long time frame. The colors are only numbered,
no names. Pantone is not a guide to historical color names, or any
other kind of color names. The whole point is that you and the
printer each have a Pantone book or fan. You say you want color #X
on the cover, and that's what you get. You don't have to specify
the edition of the Pantone book or fan.
Thanks, Fran, for this interesting resource!
Fran is correct regarding Pantone, however the books are
expensive and recommended to be replaced every year. It was developed
specifically for the printing industry — there are some basic ink
colors that are mixed in various combinations to get the colors in
the book. There have been colors added, and particularly when a
company uses a new color and wants it consistent for their corporate
identity. Because, of course, they can't use one of the colors that
Pantone already has in the book. :-)
The RGB colors listed on the page are helpful, but will depend
on the calibration of the computer screen. I noticed the grays had a
reddish hue on my monitor, so I adjusted it and the shades of purple
make more sense now.
Besides the historic color names, how is this useful to h-
costume? Say someone has a fabric for sale, and even with an image
online I'm not sure if it will match/coordinate with something I
have, or certain shades of puce make me look ill. An understood color
system means they can give me a number and I can see the exact shade.
The downside of a printing ink system is that fabric dyes are
different. One example of this is Spoonflower — spoonflower.com, they
print custom fabric from your designs. A friend has seen color shifts
between what she wanted and what she got, so it is very much worth
getting a fabric sample before ordering yardage!
Printers can be calibrated too. If I'm looking at those
swatches and decide to print it out, it may different than when you
print it. Not to mention my monitor is showing me colors of light,
and paper or fabric shows me colors of inks or dyes, the additive vs
subtractive color. Two colors can look different on my monitor and
then print out looking the same.
As far as the accuracy of the colors, who knows what they were
looking at for the earlier historic shades. Garment colors can fade.
How exact of a shade do you need? Just look at how many shades of
teal they have:
http://www.anthus.com/Colors/Colors_T.html
or terra cotta.
-Carol
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