P is for Pantone

When discussing your wedding stationery, you may hear your graphic designer refer to PMS colours and wonder what on earth they're talking about. 'PMS' stands for Pantone Matching System - it was developed almost 50 years ago as a way of standardising colours so designers and printers have an accurate way to communicate with each other. When we choose PMS 123C, we know the egg-yolk yellow we have in mind is the same as the colour the printer will use.

We include a replica of a Pantone chip in each issue, giving you a reference if you'd like to replicate our theming palette.



Today Pantone has grown to supply colour matching products for a vast range of industries including interiors, fashion, architecture and most recently digital-based businesses. Here at Wedding Style Guide we use the Pantone swatch books that feature over 1000 colours - they look like this:






There is one swatch book for use on coated gloss papers, one for coated matte papers and one for uncoated papers - the same colour can look very different when printed on each different paper kind so there is a lot to consider when making decisions.

Of course there is a lot more to printing successfully using the Pantone system but hopefully this will make things a little clearer. Do have a look at their website as there is a wealth of information about colour forecasts and colour matching products. Their cotton swatches and new GoeGuide system (with over 2000 colours) are high on my list of 'needs'!





Posted by Jane Cameron