by christine | Nov 9, 2012 | Advertising, Branding, Business Success, Creative, Design
As a creative person, passionate about digital media, graphic design and the visual arts, colour has always been an important factor in my work.
How colours interact with each other or to a specific object can be significant especially in design. The same can be said about how colour relates to your brand and its impact on the consumer and what emotive feeling will be identified with your brand. Will the perception of your brand be a positive or negative behavioural reaction?
Pairing the wrong colour palette with your brand can kill your identity. It’s important to know your target audience, culturally, geographically, gender, age, and also the purpose for your campaign so that you launch your business in the right direction.
Just by viewing a colour in a design, and how it interacts with your brand can completely change or send out a false representation of your brand to the viewer. Colour is such a powerful and important communication tool that it should not be neglected; it is part of our daily actions in life represented in religious, cultural, political and social influences.
Studies have shown when users are shown a bright red hue; it will create a physical feeling of anxiousness and an increase in heart rate. This would not be a good use of colour if used on the interior walls of an emergency room, but if the colour red were associated with food, it would be a positive action to a reaction. You want the consumer to feel hungry and in a response really need to go out and purchase your product.
There is so much more complexity to colour and colour theory and I could go on, but maybe I will save that for another blog.
*Just a note you may want to check out a few of my favourite artist’s that were really the pioneers with colour theory– Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc to name a couple.
Marc
http://www.franzmarc.org/The-Red-Horses.jsp
http://artsconnected.org/collection/111185/franz-marc
Kandinsky
http://www.wassilykandinsky.net/
by Lindsay Sleightholm | Apr 30, 2012 | Branding, Business Success, Creative, Design
Pantone. What a beautiful word. It just rolls off the tongue.
As any designer knows, Pantone provides a collection of numbered spot colours that cannot be reproduced in CMYK. It is device independent, thus ensuring solid, accurate colour reproduction every time. Basically, it means “I want this colour – I get this colour.”
Pantone guides are now a staple of the graphic design industry. In fact, most designers can easily name their favourite swatch; mine’s 485.
Humble beginnings
It’s hard to believe Pantone has only been around for 50 years. The organization started out as a small print company in New Jersey, and was propelled forward with the help of a then temporary employee, Lawrence Herbert.
Herbert was hired fresh out of university and had originally planned on going back to school to study medicine. His plans changed, and in 1962 he bought them out. A year later he introduced PMS (Pantone Matching System) and, in doing so, revolutionized the business of colour.
Today, Pantone is known as the global colour authority, with millions of brands banking on Pantone ink to ensure consistent identity colour.
Drool-worthy
As with any successful brand, the company expanded – and somewhere along the way came the swag.
I remember when I received my first Pantone mug as a gift. I was thrilled and, of course, wanted more. With a heads-up from a colleague, I visited my local Chapters store and was overjoyed to find a colourful pyramid display of bright, shiny Pantone mugs. It was like a little piece of designer heaven against a backdrop of lattes and magazines.
While I was standing in line to purchase the second piece in what would surely become an abundant and drool-worthy Pantone collection, the question occurred to me: “Pantone in Chapters? Has Pantone gone… mainstream?”
The Pantone Universe
Today, what was once reserved only for designers, creatives and the print industry has now indeed become part of the mainstream. Perhaps even more quickly than the introduction of additional colours, Pantone is now churning out consumer products.
It’s become much more than a standardized colour system, and enveloped a market far greater-reaching than it initially intended. In fact, anyone with an appreciation for colour and branding can get their hands on scads of Pantone-inspired items courtesy of the fast-growing “Pantone Universe“.
The universe expands
The Pantone Universe – as one would expect by the name – is a full-fledged cosmos comprised of products from the Pantone brand.
In addition to clothing, accessories, electronics and housewares, the Pantone Universe also includes the Pantone Hotel, which is as brand-infused as you’d imagine. (Incidentally, if you happen to be headed to Brussels and book far enough in advance, you can stay the night for under 100 Euro.)
Then, of course there’s Pantone’s newly introduced line of cosmetics. Partnering with Sephora, the Pantone Universe is banking on the lure of its booming brand – as well as its colour of the year, Tangerine Tango – to entice cosmetics buyers to open their wallets.
Zero to hero
I don’t know about Tangerine Tango, but I’m okay with just my Pantone mugs for now. I don’t really need a whole universe.
But my thoughts are mixed about whether or not it’s a good thing that this universe even exists. In one respect, it’s amazing to the see the complete transformation of a brand from zero to hero. In another, I do hope it keeps its roots intact and holds strong to the goals on which it began.
Either way, no one knows how far the universe reaches. But as long as the Pantone entity remains true and authentic, the sky’s the limit.
What are your thoughts on the rise of Pantone?
