Pantone is preparing to launch initiatives to significantly reduce the time and money spent in the early stages of product development.
The Carlstadt, N.J.-based company has overhauled the design of swatch cards for its portfolio of 1,925 colors and is partnering with textile colorant and chemical producer Clariant International to assist mills around the world with matching Pantone colors.
The apparel industry’s drive to improve supply chain efficiencies and speed to market is affecting even the earliest stages of product development, said Tod Schulman, vice president of Pantone’s fashion and home segment.
“No one wants to hold inventory and the squeeze is being pushed all the way down the development cycle,” he said.
The range of items designers use for color inspiration can vary widely, from fashion to wallpaper or even clay pots, Schulman said. Finding a match to these colors is a process that eats up time and resources at the earliest stage of the product life cycle, as designers and mills ship samples back and forth. Pantone has found that simply matching a color can take as long as eight weeks.
“A lot of this is because designers choose colors that are hard to match,” Schulman said. “A lot of color, you never get what you’re looking for and you settle for something less than what your ideal was.”
Pantone is hoping that its new system can eliminate the guesswork of color matching and save time and money.
One of the most visible changes to the company’s color system will be the introduction of new Pantone SMART color swatch cards. The SMART acronym stands for sensible, manageable, accessible, relevant and tough.
Fabric swatches were previously glued to a white backing, presenting several problems for designers and those looking to match colors. Designers couldn’t feel the fabric or manipulate it to see how the color performed when it was draped or placed in different light. The glue and the white backing affected the reading of the color’s spectral data, a measure of the amount of light reflected by a color that essentially provides a color’s digital fingerprint. Swatches also had to endure the potential wear and tear of being shipped to designers and fluctuations in temperature and humidity.
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To resolve these issues, Pantone has opted for what is described as a “loose fabric presentation.” Rather than gluing a fabric onto a backing, Pantone has attached a folded 4-inch square swatch of fabric to a card. The unfolded fabric measures 4 inches by 8 inches, giving designers the ability to drape and layer and test it against skin tones. The loose fabric also allows for an easier reading of the color spectral data. Swatch cards are being shipped in hermetically sealed, UV rays-blocking packaging.
“We wanted to maintain the integrity of the original color system,” said Brooks Tippett, director of textile operations and development.
Sid Estreicher, director of business and development for the fashion and home segment, said, “It’s a more precise and technically sound swatch than what we had before.”
The power of the partnership between Clariant and Pantone will come with the launch of a Web site that provides 24-hour technical support for mills needing dyestuff recipes to match Pantone colors. Clariant will also send members of its staff to a mill to help match colors.
Pantone plans to roll out other new updates of its color system over the next several months. The new SMART cards will be available this week and sold for $8.50 each.