Taming Color's Chaos

It's the colorful sparkle of jewels that have made Tiffany's world famous.

But design director John Loring says there's another color that may be just as important: Tiffany Blue, the hue of the boxes those jewels come in.

The signature shade was chosen by the company's founder, back in 1853, because it was the favorite of Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III.

Loring says you couldn't possibly measure the marketing value of the blue box with the white ribbon.

So you can imagine how important it is to make sure that every single box is true Tiffany Blue. And believe it or not, there is a company dedicated to maintaining that blue, as well as the signature colors of scores of other businesses.

Pantone standardizes companies' unique colors, so they can be replicated all over the world, on all of their products, says Lisa Herbert, executive vice president of Pantone, recognized as one of the most important companies in the world, where color is concerned.

She says the need to standardize signature shades may seem obvious, but it wasn't until 1963 that anyone actually tried to do it. Every printing ink company had their own standard book, she says, but there wasn't a common language for designers to speak to printers all around the world.

Herbert is proud of the fact that Pantone, based in Carlstadt, N.J., succeeded in creating a common color language. Her father, Lawrence, started it all, combining his major in chemistry with his love of color.

"Color excites," he says. "Color makes people feel good. I mean, imagine yourself opening up your closet and you're feeling kind of down. The first thing you're going to do is go for that red dress. I want to get out there and do something."

More than 40 years ago, Lawrence Herbert persuaded a small group of American dye makers to use his very specific formulas, identified by number.

They standardized their colors so that everybody could be counted on to get the same red or the same blue.

"The advertising agencies jumped on it right away, because they had problems getting the same color if they put out an ad and they wanted it to run the same in Chicago and the same in New York. But every time you're dealing with different ink companies, they come up with a different shade of red. So there was no continuity. This way, they could just say 'Pantone 485.' Now everybody knows what you're talking about," recalls Herbert.

Formulas that are developed for specific companies, like "Barbie Pink" or "UPS Brown," are trademarked. But others can be purchased by anyone, and over the years, Pantone has expanded from duplicating ink colors to standardizing tones for everything from cosmetics to textiles.

Pantone's impact has spread far beyond creating samples for thousands of colors. The company has now become almost as well known for color forecasting. Designers and retailers pay up to $750 for books that foretell two years ahead of time which colors will appeal to consumers.

So when Pantone said that pink would be hot this spring, Stephanie Solomon, fashion director at Bloomingdale's, was listening.

"These handbags are made a year ago. We need to know that pink will be important a year later. And so we trust companies like Pantone to give us direction."

So it's no wonder that when Pantone forecast Moroccan Blue and Glazed Ginger as next fall's hot colors, it was big news in the fashion press. Similar shades are already turning up on the runway.

At the Home Show in Chicago, you can see how the company influences products as diverse as vacuum cleaners and blenders. "I think this is an industry that really gets it, that understands that color really does have this tremendous pull to the consumer," says Leatrice Eiseman, chief color forecaster for Pantone.

She is at the Home Show to unveil the company's predictions for houseware products in 2007.

Part of Eiseman's job is determining which colors look good together. "It's not all about one color; it's the way colors are combined," she says.

For example, there's the Paradiso palate, which features shades like Caneel Bay and Festival Fuchsia. There's the Pique-nique palate, including Baton Rouge.

She explains to hundreds of people at the Home Show how she forecasts colors. She's not a psychic, she says, just a good observer. This is her take on why orange is still in: "We did see it in February as 'The Gates,' the exhibit in Central Park that earned so much attention. What this does is to help to reinvent the popularity of a color."

Eiseman also does testing to determine consumer preferences. That's how she found out that the popularity of coffee cafes was changing the image of brown from blah to beautiful. She calls it the Starbucks phenomenon.

During the company's word association studies, people unusually responded to brown as "dirt" or "earth," "not very positive," she says. However, young people in particular have started to say "rich and robust."

Though some shades, like the famous Tiffany Blue, can be fashionable forever, others come and go, says Lawrence Herbert.

"Color is changing all the time, and you've got to go along with the changes," he says.

Besides, change is good for business!

Bloomingdale's Stephanie Solomon says that if you buy a hot pink purse this summer, you will hate it next season. But she laughs and notes, "You had it for one fun summer."