Top Pantone tools for graphic and industrial design

Review of the top Pantone tools for Graphic Design and Industrial Design

With so many Pantone colour tools at designers disposal it can be hard to know which one to turn to. It was a hard task, but we have picked our favourites from Pantone’s exhaustive list, to review and thus hopefully make your decision easier.

So which Pantone tools made it into our list?

Pantone’s Solid Color Set

Pantone’s Solid Colour Set offers designers all the colours from the PANTONE PMS system plus all the exciting colours added since 2010, on both coated and uncoated paper. Added in 2016 a further 112 new colours including more neutrals, yellows, oranges, blues, greens and purples.

The set includes 1,867 chromatically arranged solid colour choices in both fan guide and chip formats.

Providing portable Fan guides which can be used to:

• Select colour
• Specify colour
• Match colour

The Solid Chips book have the same page numbering for ease of finding the colours. Attach the tear-out chips to artwork and digital files for easy and consistent colour communication.

All new colours have been specially formulated to print using a uniform ink film thickness, making them easily matched on press and the ink formulations are provided to aid printers in mixing colours.

Set includes:

• Colour index
• Lighting evaluation tool

Features:

• 1,867 Solid PANTONE Colours
• Fan guides and tear-out colour chips on replacement 3 ring binder pages
• Chromatically arranged
• PANTONE COLOR MANAGER Software included
• 112 new colours added this year

Benefits:

• Coated and Uncoated effect on each colour
• All new colours have been formulated to print using a uniform ink thickness
• Replacement pages are available, so your book will never be empty
• Easy to communicate colours by distinct name or number

Interested in getting your hands on the: Pantone Solid Color Set?

Pantone’s Plastics Standard Chips Collection 

Yes, we may have done a slight price jump from the last tool, but we couldn’t not mention this tool!

The ideal Pantone tool for Industrial Design, Pantone’s Plastics Standards Chips Collection includes 1,755 Pantone PMS Plus Series Colours as Plastic Standard Chips. Unlike the Pantone Plus Guides which are guides to the colours these are mathematical colour standards.

Plastic Standard Chips have both a matte and a gloss surface different thicknesses. Wipe clean and durable they are suitable for use in manufacturing plants as well as design offices.

The collection is presented on three rotating carousel towers, with each tray holding 100 chips each.

These chips allow precise colour specification and matching of any hard goods:

• Toys
• Consumer electronics
• Home furnishing
• Appliances
• Accessories and much more…

If required, replacement chips can be bought separately.

Interested in getting your hands on the: Pantone’s Plastics Standard Chips Collection?

Pantone’s Metallic Chips 

This includes 301 of Pantone’s metallic colours and the chips are coated and chromatically arranged with their unique Pantone number.

Each page contains 6 tear-out strips of each colour and replacement pages are available too.

Metallic chips can be used to match:

• Accessories such as zippers and buckles
• Foil printing on cards or packaging
• Coloured metallic home wares
• Stationery
• Jewellery and hair accessories

Features:

• Broad palette of 301 new colours
• Six tear-out chips per colour
• Six glimmering colours per page
• COLOUR MANAGER SOFTWARE included, for free

Benefits:

• Loose-leaf format for easy use
• High lustre for greater impact
• Chromatically arranged, making it easier to locate your colours.

Now combined with the Pantone Premium Metallic Chips with an extra 300, non-leafing, high lustre metallics, the combined chip book contains 601 colours.

Interested in getting your hands on the: Pantone’s Metallic Chips?