PANTONE is a system for achieving accurate colors in printing and product manufacturing. A designer can consult a book of standardized, numbered paint chips and send these numbers to a printer, who has formulas for mixing these colors exactly.

Example of a page of PANTONE paint chips.

There are many sets of paint chips depending on the application. There are solid chips which are premixed inks. Some have both a solid chip and the nearest matching CMYK process color. There are also many specialty chip sets, such as pastel or metallic colors.

Many graphics applications incorporate digital simulations of PANTONE swatches into their color pickers (such as Photoshop). Some PANTONE colors lie outside a monitor's RGB color gamut, so it's always a good idea to consult real paint chips before proceeding with an expensive printshop order.

For more information, consult the PANTONE website.