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Comment by traceroute66 | Hacker News Reader

> Pantone did not invent colors... physics did. Who the fuck allowed this company to register colors under copy rights?

The point is communication, usability, and reproduction.

Communication because "Pantone 123" is easier to convey throughout the chain than "C:11,Y:22,M:33,K:44".

Usability because Pantone swatches are easier to use in a design environment, and also easier to choose the swatch number in Adobe than to mess around choosing "C:11,Y:22,M:33,K:44". You can also give your client a Pantone swatch book and let them loose without them having to know about CMYK, substrates etc. etc.

Reproduction because you can ensure you consistently achieve the same output irrespective of substrate (uncoated,coated,glossy, paper, fabric yada yada yada ...). It also gives printers a well defined reference for ink mixing, quality checks etc.

TL;DR: It makes everyone's life easier, clients, designers, printers etc.

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Don't use Pantone 123 in your product because that's Fluke trade dress. =)

Pantone, a division of X-Rite, is owned by Danaher. Fluke is also owned by Danaher. I have no particular point, other than I found it interesting that the two brands of shared parentage collided spontaneously in conversation.

Fluke and the sister measurement companies (like Tek) were spun out of Danaher in 2016 and are now called Fortive. More corporate shenanigans.

Ahh, interesting, good to know, thank you. I've been outside of that world for a while.

Also HP had big test equipment business, then the HP went with computers and the measurement stuff was spun into Agilent.

Then the electronic measurement stuff was spun into Keysight and the Agilent was left with every other instrument stuff. So the soul of HP changed name twice

The HP also spun into HPE for servers/switches/storage and other datacenter stuff.

All to shed business units that are "just steadily making money" from ones that see bigger growth.

https://www.redbubble.com/i/skirt/Pantone-123C-by-palmea1/21...

That dress seems to be doing just fine

Why don't we have a public domain standard to discuss colors the same way?

Because somebody hasn't done all the work. Why would they?

As an individual crafter/designer I could see myself developing specifications for a small number of colors I use in a project. Doing 1000s of colors would be a huge project that would need some way to pay for it.

Pantone is an ink the public domain standard would be cmyk.

If you get five printers and ask them all to print C:11,Y:22,M:33,K:44 you get five different colours as each will have to mix their cmyk inks to get that colour.

Pantone is a spot colour that means you can buy a pot of ink thats Pantone 123 there is no mixing so the colour is always the same. If you want to print on glossy paper thats going to change the look of the colour so Pantone also do inks for each surface you want to print on, they also do dyes for plastics and clothes etc.

Edit: The difference between the five printers would be insignificant but if you are a designer or want your logo to look exactly the same on stand ups, pamphlet, business cards etc you would use a spot colour.

Part of the utility of Pantone is not just the color spec but the physical samples they produce that are the actual specifications and standards. They make color swatches and cards so that you can see for sure what everyone else will (try) to produce when you say "make this accent piece Pantone 13459 with a matte finish and this bit over here Pantone 9329 with a glossy finish." The utility isn't 100% just in the standard but also in producing those physical instantiations so designers and artists can KNOW what color they're actually specifying and can see it in different lights not just on a screen that might not fully replicate the color.

Making all those samples is tougher to do with an open standard, you'd need some certification body/process for a company to make for people to use to satisfy a similar niche as Pantone.

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