Pantone colours now come as paint

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This article was published 01/10/2006 (7108 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PANTONE, whose influence over colour spans virtually the entire spectrum of consumer products, has entered the home paint market.

Pantone colours were once available mainly to design professionals who used the company’s system to create colour combinations that could be accurately repeated time and again. But now homeowners have nearly 3,000 custom paint choices inside and outside the home.

That news has Roger Merrill ready to paint the town red, or at least some shade of Rococco Red (Pantone 18-1652 TPX). He says consumers are finally ready to embrace colour and break free from the neutrals that dominated interiors and exteriors for so long.

“What it tells me is consumers are loosening up on colour because now every room in the house can be a different colour,” says the San Clemente, Calif., paint dealer, who will carry the line. “This represents a big movement to colour.”

And livelier colours could represent a real shift in an already huge paint market. Paint accounts for 57 per cent of the US$19.5 billion in annual coating sales in the U.S., according to the National Paint and Coatings Association. That’s up more than 22 per cent from 1995. Consumers slather on nearly 3.67 billion litres of paint each year.

“The colour trends are toward more vibrant, vivid colours inside and outside the home,” says Bent Mikkelsen of Paint Pro magazine, a paint industry trade publication.

But Mikkelsen says whites and other neutrals are still popular in new construction so as not to offend the sensibilities of potential buyers who might be turned off by strong colours. In his estimation, colour reigns in custom paint jobs performed by more than half a million painting contractors in the U.S.

Pantone is far from alone in promoting bold colour palettes. Amy Larrabee of the Color Marketing Group, a consortium of 1,000 independent colour experts who forecast colour trends, says “Our forecast is for colours that are bolder and brighter, and that trend is going to keep on going.”

Consumers are much more colour-sophisticated and willing, Larrabee believes, to experiment. Even tones once considered neutral are due for a shake up. She says neutrals will be influenced by spa tones of blues, greens “to make you feel comfortable. These will be calming colours yet they are still bold.”

Pantone got its start as the yardstick by which colour forecasts entered the production mainstream, and has made its reputation partly based on its ability to accurately replicate colour. It makes the same promise with its paint line, identifying all its paints by number as well as name.

“What we’re talking about is a professional colour tool that designers have relied on for half a century to inspire colours for product development,” says Lisa Herbert, executive vice-president of Pantone. “Why not allow discerning homeowners and their decorators to use this? We thought ‘why keep this a deep, dark secret?’ We know colour trends and we know what’s hot.”

The paint will be sold under the Pantone Paints label through the Fine Paints of Europe retail network as well as by phone or online. Interior and exterior paints are available. Homeowners and designers can go online for design tools and other design assistance. The 2007 Pantone Color Forecast is also available.

Pantone will sell two paint fan decks. The primary deck, with 1,925 colours, is $165. The second deck is a matching system used largely by printers, and it contains another 1,000 colour possibilities.

www.pantonepaints.com