Meeting Chroma the Great: Pantone from Chemistry to Fashion and Back Again Margaret McCormick for Saturated Space
Walk into any art supply store and there are certain expected products: paint, brushes, sketchbooks, etc. but just beyond these materials, usually towards the cash register, is a collection of (for lack of a better word) tchotchkes. Though these are no ordinary tchotchkes, for they proclaim: “I’m a designer!” and as such are correspondingly expensive. Yet amongst all these colourful mugs, bags and iphone cases there is one company inspiring covetous desire above the others: Pantone. Pantone is the definitive authority on colour for designers, architects, and printers, all while remaining that most elusive adjective: “cool”.
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Pantone’s selfdesignation as the warden of colour is somewhat reminiscent of a children’s book from 1961, The Phantom Tollbooth. In the story, a bored young boy (Milo) enters into a magical world that encourages exploration and education. Towards the climax, Milo meets “Chroma the Great”, the master of colour and “only sane man left in the kingdom”2 . Yet as is the way in moral parables, the boy attempts to usurp Chroma, fails spectacularly and flees, leaving the sky in chaos. It is a lesson in responsibility and deference to knowledge. 1
Images from “Pantone Accessories” Pantone.com http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/category.aspx?ca=33. (accessed January 2nd, 2014) 2 Norton Juster, The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth (New York: Knopf Publishing, 2011) 120125
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