BY David Weinberger

The Color of Nothing

In the last 3 days, there were no less than three different taglines on the Pantone website . On the home page, locked up with the logo was, “Where color comes from.” If you went to the “About” section, you would have seen, “The Power of Color” locked up with a different wordmark. On Monday, Pantone launched a new logo designed by G2, the branding arm of Grey Global Group, complete with the new tagline, “The color of ideas.”

3 Recent Pantone taglines

Pantone is clearly and desperately trying to find their voice. From their website, “Each year, innumerable products and services are sold by Pantone and its hundreds of licensees in over 100 countries in the graphic arts, textile, apparel, interior, plastics, architectural and industrial design markets.” I would think Pantone would want to communicate to different audiences in different ways, meaningful ways, but maybe they think “The color of ideas.” does it. I think it is a waste.

I have written before on the Pantone brand and to save myself some time, i’ll quote myself:
“The real problem I have with Pantone is that I just don’t care about them as a brand. I don’t know what they stand for, other than “color”, and all of their marketing speak seems so far-fetched and made up. I also don’t think they care about me as a consumer or designer. I really can’t think of two bigger problems that a brand can have. Therefore, I don’t think that all of these Pantone branded products can be successful unless they are successful despite the brand. It’s like a book brought to you by the Dewey Decimal System. What does it mean?”

The new logo is harmless at best. The window idea is one I’ve seen a hundred times in crits and at least several times out there. Nationwide and Toledo Museum of Art are two that come to mind. For Pantone, it is simply another way not to put a stake in the ground and be everything to everyone. Great work.

Pantone window logo in use

New Pantone Paints featuring the new logo

The Nationwide window logo

\n\nIn the last 3 days, there were no less than three different taglines on the Pantone website . On the home page, locked up with the logo was, \"Where color comes from.\" If you went to the \"About\" section, you would have seen, \"The Power of Color\" locked up with a different wordmark. On Monday, Pantone launched a new logo designed by G2, the branding arm of Grey Global Group, complete with the new tagline, \"The color of ideas.\"

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners