That $75 color swatch book I bought actually saved me from a branding disaster

I dropped $75 on a Pantone swatch book last month because I was sick of screen colors looking wrong on print materials. Turned out my client's 'forest green' was actually a muddy olive on paper and fixing it before the print run saved me at least $400 in reprints. Has anyone else had a cheap tool or reference book pay for itself quick like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

perez.cole22d ago

Heard a printer once say that Pantone books are ONLY useful if you use the actual Pantone coated/uncoated paper they give you. That made a lot of sense because the numbers are based on specific paper stock, not random copy paper. So maybe the problem is the printer's end, not the swatch book itself. Calibrators are good but they don't fix a printer that's just way off the standard.

emma_young22d ago

Disagree a little bit here. I bought the same exact swatch book and honestly it just collects dust because my printer's profiles are so far off from the Pantone numbers anyway. The real fix for me was getting a cheap calibrator and running test prints with the client looking over my shoulder in person. That $75 could have been two calibration sessions and a coffee with the client.