Pantone Matching System

The PANTONE Matching System is an internationally recognised system for specifying colours. If a print job only requires one or two colours, it would be more economical to use two colour inks instead of the four colours used in process printing; cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

The PANTONE Colour Matching System was devised to meet the needs of graphic designers who want to use a solid spot or special colour.

The system uses a small number of inks which can be mixed according to a recipe book of colour swatches. These colours are physically mixed prior to going on a printing press, whereas, process printing uses half screen dots of CMYK colours to create the illusion of solid colours in the human eye.

The PANTONE system makes it easy to specify a colour, and a very close match can be produced across the world using the same recipe of standard inks.

A wider range of colours can be produced with the PANTONE system that are more vibrant and vivid than what can be produced using standard four colour process printing. Metallic and fluorescent inks are also available.