Pantone break from Adobe
By David Highfield, Studio Manager
I cannot believe it, being asked to pay for cloud-based software via subscription is not new, Adobe Creative Cloud, dropbox, etc, they all do it. But now Pantone and Adobe have split, Pantone want you to pay $15 monthly (£12) / $90 annually (£75) to have their Pantone Connect swatch library appear in Adobe products? Being totally honest, even working within the creative industry for over 20 years, I still never saw this coming.
Any graphic designer who knows their stuff, understands just how import Pantone (meaning “all colours”, combining pan and tone) are and have been over the years. Developed in the early 60’s, Pantone’s colour matching system helps fellow designers see what specific colours will look like when printed. These have been part of Adobe from the beginning of time.
This is a massive disruption within the creative industry, effecting designers across the world. We all use PMS colours as a base when working on an organisations logo and brand, why? Colour Consistency Guaranteed! Using a PMS colour will ensure your logo is printed with the same colour no matter where your item is produced across the globe.
I’m so thankful for Stuart Semple, with his innovative new colour swatch library plugin! Stuart, a famous contemporary British artist, from https://www.culturehustleusa.com has come up with a solution you may wish to take advantage of. He has released Freetone, a free plugin for the Adobe suite that in the words from its web page contains “1280 Liberated colours are extremely Pantoneish and reminiscent of those found in the most iconic colour book of all time. In fact it’s been argued that they are indistinguishable from those behind the Adobe paywall”.
Here are some links you may find useful.
https://www.userlandia.com/home/2022/11/adobe-pantone-faq
Image/s courtesy of Emily Bernal and Mika Baumeister, Unsplash.