Colour is one of the most important tools a designer has. It can establish a brand identity, create emotion, attract attention and determine how a printed product is perceived.
But choosing a colour on screen is only the beginning.
Once that colour moves into production, printers have to translate a digital design into a physical result. Substrate, ink, print technology, colour profiles, RIP settings and production conditions can all influence the final appearance.
That makes developments in standardized colour systems particularly relevant to today's print industry.
In September 2026, Pantone introduced 224 new colours to the Pantone Matching System (PMS), expanding the range available to designers and print professionals. Pantone describes the new collection as a response to the growing interest in expressive, emotionally driven colour and the continued influence of maximalist design.
For print providers, the announcement is about more than 224 additional swatches. It highlights an ongoing challenge in digital printing: how do you reproduce the colour the designer intended?
A Bigger Palette for Modern Design
Pantone's new collection expands the range of colours available within the Pantone Matching System to reflect current design trends and creative preferences.
The new colours include intense yellows, greens, pinks, oranges, blues and purples, along with deeper and more sophisticated tones.
Pantone has also organized the new colours into four curated palettes:
Desire for Pleasure explores playful, sweet and uplifting combinations featuring pinks, aquatic blue and pistachio green.
Desire for the Exquisite combines saturated colours inspired by rich natural tones, including chocolate, grape, peach, deep red and vibrant orange.
Oxygenating draws from energetic natural colours such as golden amber, citrus green and botanical greens.
Beyond Boundaries combines saturated brights, soft pastels and calmer neutrals, creating a palette that mixes nostalgia with a more futuristic aesthetic.
Rather than simply presenting isolated new colours, these palettes demonstrate how the shades can work together to create distinct visual identities.
For designers, that can be a useful starting point for developing packaging, marketing materials, signage, promotional products and other printed applications.
Why Pantone Still Matters in a Digital World
Digital printing provides tremendous control over colour, but that does not mean every colour specified on a computer screen will automatically reproduce exactly as expected.
RGB screens use light to create colour. Most conventional digital printing processes use combinations of inks to reproduce colour on a physical substrate.
Those are fundamentally different environments.
A designer may select a particular colour digitally, but the printer must translate that colour into a printable combination of inks. The result can then be influenced by the material being printed, the ink technology and the colour-management workflow.
This is one reason standardized colour references remain valuable.
A physical Pantone reference provides designers, printers and customers with a common target.
Instead of saying, "Make the blue look a little darker," a project can reference a defined colour standard.
From PMS Colour to Digital Print
Using a Pantone colour in artwork does not necessarily mean a digital printer will reproduce that colour as a literal spot ink.
In many digital workflows, the RIP or colour-management system must interpret the specified colour and determine how to reproduce it using the printer's available ink set.
This is where colour management becomes important.
A typical workflow may involve:
Design software → colour specification → RIP → colour profile → printer ink set → substrate → finished print
Each stage can influence the final result.
For print providers, understanding this workflow is essential when customers expect their brand colours to remain consistent across different products, materials or printing technologies.
The Challenge of Brand Colour Consistency
For a brand, colour consistency can be particularly important.
A corporate logo might appear on business cards, brochures, product packaging, banners, labels, promotional products and signage.
The customer generally expects that colour to remain recognizable across all of those applications.
But those products may be produced using different equipment and substrates.
A coated paper stock can produce a very different visual result from an uncoated material. A white acrylic panel behaves differently from a coloured substrate. A UV print on metal can have a different appearance from an aqueous or toner-based print on paper.
This is why colour matching is not simply a matter of entering a Pantone number into a RIP.
The production environment matters.
Substrate Changes the Colour
One of the most important considerations in digital printing is the material itself.
Ink interacts with the substrate.
A highly absorbent material can produce a different appearance from a coated surface. Transparent materials introduce another variable because the colour may be viewed against a background or illuminated from behind.
UV printing adds another dimension because UV inks are cured on the surface rather than absorbed in the same way as many conventional inks.
The same artwork can therefore produce noticeably different results depending on what it is printed on.
For this reason, colour-critical projects should be evaluated using the actual production substrate whenever possible.
White Ink Can Change the Equation
White ink is particularly important when working with UV printing.
On a conventional white substrate, CMYK inks are generally printed against the white surface of the material.
But when printing on clear, dark or coloured substrates, white ink can become part of the colour-management and design strategy.
A white layer can be used as a foundation beneath CMYK colours, helping create stronger colour reproduction on non-white materials.
Alternatively, white can be selectively applied to create visual effects, highlights or layered designs.
This means that the printer is no longer working with CMYK alone.
The production workflow may involve CMYK + White + Varnish, creating considerably more possibilities—but also additional variables that need to be controlled.
Varnish Adds Another Dimension
Colour isn't the only way a digital UV printer can change how a design looks.
Clear varnish can introduce gloss, texture and surface contrast.
A designer might use a matte printed background with selected areas of gloss varnish, for example, creating a visual effect even though the underlying colour remains unchanged.
With digital embellishment technologies such as Komodo AccuSPOT, selected areas can also receive raised or tactile clear UV effects.
This creates an interesting relationship between colour and finishing.
The designer is no longer working only with hue, saturation and brightness. The surface itself becomes part of the visual experience.
More Colours Mean More Creative Possibilities
The addition of 224 new PMS colours gives designers more options when developing visual identities and printed materials.
For print providers, this can create opportunities to demonstrate how digital production can interpret those new colour directions across different applications.
Consider a packaging campaign based around one of Pantone's new saturated palettes.
The same colour story could potentially appear across:
- Folding cartons
- Product labels
- Promotional signage
- Acrylic displays
- Short-run marketing materials
- Promotional products
- Specialty packaging
- Direct-to-object applications
Each application may use a different substrate and production process, but the underlying colour direction remains consistent.
That is where a well-managed digital workflow becomes valuable.
Colour Management Is the Bridge
The ability to reproduce colour consistently depends heavily on colour management.
A modern digital print workflow can involve ICC profiles, linearization, ink limits, rendering intents, spot-colour libraries and RIP settings.
The objective is to create a predictable relationship between the colour specified in the artwork and the physical output.
Calibration and profiling are therefore not simply technical tasks performed once when equipment is installed.
They are part of maintaining a repeatable production environment.
For businesses producing colour-critical work, this can reduce reprints, minimize subjective adjustments and make communication between designers, customers and production staff easier.
Pantone and the Digital Workflow
Pantone's new colours are available through updated physical colour guides, including the Formula Guide, Color Bridge and Solid Chips Set. Pantone also says the colours are available digitally through Pantone Connect and its Adobe Creative Cloud extension.
That digital accessibility is important because modern print production begins long before the file reaches the printer.
Designers may work entirely within Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign. Colours are selected digitally, incorporated into artwork and then passed through a production workflow.
Being able to reference standardized colours within that environment helps connect the design stage with the production stage.
However, the physical output still needs to be considered.
A digital swatch on a monitor cannot replace a physical proof when exact appearance matters.
Should Printers Update Their Pantone Guides?
With the release of the new colours, print providers may also want to consider the condition and age of their existing Pantone references.
Pantone notes that its current graphics system contains 2,614 market-driven solid Pantone colours, including the 224 newly launched colours. The company also recommends replacing physical guides periodically because handling, light exposure, paper aging and other factors can affect colour appearance.
This is particularly relevant for print shops where colour matching is part of everyday production.
A worn or faded reference can become an unreliable target.
A current physical guide gives designers and production teams a more dependable reference when discussing colour-critical projects.
What the New Colours Mean for Print Providers
The arrival of another 224 PMS colours is a reminder that colour continues to evolve.
Design trends change. Customers expect more distinctive branding. Packaging becomes more visually ambitious. Promotional products become more personalized. Digital printing makes shorter and more customized production runs possible.
As a result, print providers need to be prepared to reproduce an increasingly diverse range of colour requirements.
That does not mean every print shop needs to reproduce every Pantone colour perfectly on every substrate.
Instead, it means understanding the capabilities and limitations of the production process.
When a customer provides a PMS reference, the printer should be able to evaluate the application, substrate, ink technology and colour-management workflow and determine the best approach.
Colour Accuracy Starts Before the Printer
The best colour results rarely come from adjusting the printer after something goes wrong.
They start with communication.
The designer needs to understand how colour specifications translate into production. The printer needs to understand the customer's expectations. The production team needs the appropriate profiles, substrates and equipment settings.
For particularly important projects, a physical proof can help establish a shared reference before full production begins.
This becomes even more important when the job combines colour with specialty effects such as white ink, varnish, transparent materials or raised embellishment.
Bringing New Colour Trends to Life
Pantone's latest collection reflects a broader design movement toward stronger, more expressive and more emotionally engaging colour.
For digital printers, that trend presents an opportunity.
Modern UV printing can reproduce vibrant graphics across a wide range of rigid and specialty materials. White ink can expand possibilities on coloured and transparent substrates. Varnish can introduce gloss and texture. Digital embellishment can add another layer of tactile detail.
The result is a production environment where colour is only one component of the finished visual experience.
Colour + substrate + ink + surface + finishing can work together to create something considerably more distinctive than a conventional flat print.
The Future of Colour Is About More Than a Swatch
The introduction of 224 new Pantone colours is ultimately a reminder of the relationship between design and production.
Designers will continue to push colour in new directions. Brands will continue to demand consistency. Customers will continue to expect high-quality results across increasingly diverse materials and applications.
Digital printing provides the flexibility to respond to those demands—but getting the most from that flexibility requires a controlled colour-management workflow and an understanding of how different technologies affect the final result.
Source Credit
This blog summary is based on insights from the article "Pantone Just Launched 200+ Bold New Graphics Colors — See the Palettes!" published by Pantone.
