Cross-media color accuracy with Pantone

Pantone color guides are a tricky business. With a purchase price of approximately €150 to € 350 per set of color guides, which typically consist of a coated and an uncoated guide, this investment is worth considering carefully – especially for a one-person business. Here, I'd like to take a closer look at the Color Bridge guides, which, while in the higher price segment, are essential for designers working in both print and digital media. You'll find out why in a bit.

Pantone color charts make life easier for a design agency. While inexpensive Pantone charts only give you an idea of the solid Pantone color and its approximate (!) CMYK value (left in the photo below), higher-priced Pantone charts show the CMYK, RGB, HEX, and Pantone color codes ("solid") (right in the photo below). They essentially bridge the gap between the print and digital worlds. This allows you to immediately recognize the difference between Pantone and CMYK colors and consider whether the extra printing costs are worth it or not.

Colors must be reproduced exactly as defined in the visualization of a corporate identity, both in print (Pantone or CMYK) and on screen (RGB or HEX). However, colors usually look completely different in digital format than in print, and screen calibration is also required.

Let me demonstrate this with an example: In the summer of 2017, I developed the branding for Dr. Gasser-Puck, a medical practice on the Tyrolean countryside. The defined colors were plant green, sunny yellow, sea blue, pure white, stone gray, earth brown, moss green, raspberry pink, and sky blue. Furthermore, there were color gradients that had to be precisely simulated, which had to come across perfectly both in print and digitally.

I had already defined the CMYK color codes for printing using my Pantone color guides. To determine the correct RGB and HEX color codes, I used the left column of my Pantone color guides.

Then, I entered the CMYK codes into Adobe Kuler and next to them (in a new color field) the HEX codes according to the Pantone fan (important: select the “custom” color rule in the top left corner of Adobe Kuler, otherwise it won’t work).

Adobe Kuler automatically calculates RGB and HEX color codes based on the CMYK codes entered. However, these are really useless (sorry, Adobe)!

The exact Pantone color codes (CMYK, RGB, HEX) are framed in green, the color codes automatically calculated by Adobe Kuler are crossed out in red.

As you can see in the screenshots above, seemingly "identical" colors look completely different on screen. This is what happens when you use Adobe Kuler or numerous other online tools to convert CMYK color codes to RGB/HEX color codes. And this is precisely why Pantone color guides ("Color Bridge"!) are so important. Only Pantone color guides show the optically (!) correct screen colors that most closely match the CMYK values. This is the only way to achieve a consistent (color) corporate identity across all communication channels.