Paspaley – be still my beating heart…
We all know that colors on monitors can vary widely. What may look like a plum in real life can take on any hue from lilac to bright purple on different monitors. It’s one of the reasons everyone loves Pantone numbers. They give a more consistent idea of the actual color of a fabric. Alas, Pantone stopped publishing the Shopping Guide several years back, and they have become as rare, and as valuable, as a South Sea Pearl necklace. Okay, well, maybe that’s a bit of hyperbole, but since I didn’t win the half a billion Powerball jackpot, I can confess that I was going to buy myself one of those babies if I had.
Anyway, I digress. If you don’t have a Pantone Color Chart or Shopping Guide, not all is lost. You can enter the Pantone number(s) associated with the fabric in your Google search bar, and it will bring up information about the color in question.
It’s not as good as having the actual color chart in front of you, but it can give you some idea of the color. In the meantime, we can only hope that Pantone decides to publish the Shopping Guide again at some point.
Happy sewing!
That pearl necklace is gorgeous! What would we be without our dreams?
Decided to do a search for Pantone Shopping Guide and found their site. They’re offering something for $195.00, and I went thru the process as if I was ordering. Is this a different item?
https://www.pantone.com/pages/shop/basket.aspx
Thanks for your very helpful tutorials. All the best for the Holidays and the coming year.
Joy
It is different, Joy. The old Shopping Guide, which was officially called the Pantone Shopping/Color Guide, was a retail product that sold for about $25, and was geared toward home decorators and sewing enthusiasts. I love what they say in the preface pages:
“As we embrace electronic commerce and now feel comfortable with secured credit card transactions and 24-hour customer service, the focus now shifts toward the area of color accuracy and integrity of product appearance.
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The Pantone Shopping Color Guide provides you with a solution for accurately choosing the product color you want, so now you can buy with confidence in a retail store or on the internet.”
Such a good idea. Such a shame they discontinued it.
Great tip! I’ve done this before, but then I worried that the Pantone swatches on my screen might not be accurate for the same reasons a fabric swatch wouldn’t be. But if you think it’s good start, I’ll try it again. I do wish they would bring back that shopping guide!
If you suspect that your monitor might not show true colors, you can calibrate it. I’m not sure about tablets though. I’ve never done it, but do recall back in the days of newsgroups (the needlework one in particular) that this was discussed.
I wonder if Pantone discontinued the shopping guide due to low demand, or because it wasn’t a high priced (high profit margin?) item. Or someone decided “shopper’s guide? who cares about them.” Maybe it’s time to start an email campaign to bring it back…
I didn’t realize that they’re no longer available. I’ll be sure to guard mine closely, as my 9yo daughter loves to fan it out and dance around with it. Can’t blame her, though…
I am going to brag just a teensy bit. My office best buddy is a graphic designer and she has the complete Pantone Guide — the pricey one — and replaces it every few years. When I am in doubt, I walk next door and borrow her guide.
I know I’m gloating but I have to say that this has saved me some serious $$ and color mistakes, as everyone knows that “taupe” is open to myriad interpretations.
You are so lucky!!! I am probably going to invest in the least expensive guide next year for Gorgeous Fabrics.
It may be a good investment. I have often asked fabric vendors if they have Pantone and can tell me the closest number of a particular item. I once bought an entire jacket — fabric, lining, and buttons — from three different merchants, using the Pantone guide. Everything coordinated perfectly.
I think we should boycott Pantone instead. Seriously — they are too big for their britches anyway, claiming to “forecast” colors for each season way in advance when in reality they are DICTATING colors, since all the big manufacturers and stores slavishly produce and stock all of the colors that Pantone says will be popular, and then us lowly shoppers are limited to the colors that Pantone “predicted” and we don’t have the OPTION of buying anything else!
Why not use a Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams paint deck as a color reference? Even if someone didn’t have a paint deck, she or he could pop into the nearest paint store to pick up a color swatch for free. Take that, Pantome!
I tried using the Benjamin Moore guide for a while, but they pull colors out and put new ones in at least once a year. And they don’t have good matches for certain shades (browns come to mind) I guess I don’t agree that Pantone is dictating colors. I’m no Pantone apologist, but they have color watchers who are on the streets (literally) spotting trends several years in advance, and they use that trend analysis to come up with their forecasts. Call it a bully pulpit if you wish, but someone has to do it. And, to me as a business person, the alternative is to not use Pantone colors. I would love that, personally. Matching Pantones, especially to printed fabrics with lots of colors, takes a tremendous amount of time. But the effort pays dividends with consumers, IMHO.
A while back in one of the decorating magazines I get, one question asked of various designers was “favorite paint brand?” and most of them gave different companies for different color families – company A for blues, B for whites, C for greens, etc. At a minimum the answer was along the lines of “company A for blues, company B for everything else”
Paint stores I’ve been in charge for pre-assembled color decks, so if you want one for free, you have to pull the color chips and assemble them yourself. So if they are swapping colors in/out, it could get expensive or time consuming to keep it up-to date.
Only if you’re in the USA – the rest of us have completely different paint brands (and colours, due to differences in fashion/daylight/etc).
Oh, here’s a funny story. I used to sell software to a company that makes resins used by Sherwin Williams. And guess what? They use Pantone color forecasts to plan their own paint colors!
There is someone on Ebay who is still selling the 2000 guide. It is well worth the $30 investment.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pantone-Color-Guide-Brand-New-/180968611254?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a2291ddb6
But they won’t post outside the US!!
Good guide. I never really understood how the panton color guide works. You always keep up on the current fashion trends
I have the color deck offered on Ebay and use it constantly. Got the announcement yesterday about the 2013 color of the year – Emerald. Much to my surprise, it is in the 2000 deck I have – #17-5641.
Thanks for the Pantone hint!