Hi, this is Anne with Graphic Design How To, and this video is actually a follow up to another
video I made. In that video, I showed a workaround with Adobe Illustrator so that you could basically
download the Pantone swatches to your computer and then use an extension called Pantone Connect
to get all the new Pantone swatches. And if you want to check out that video,
there'll be a link right up here at the top of your screen. Some people who saw that video,
were concerned that it might be breaking Pantone's licensing terms, to rename swatches that way,
and that is definitely a valid concern and something I didn't think about, because I do not
want anyone to use products illegally. So after Googling, to see if I could find the solution
and finding absolutely nothing, I decided to reach out to Pantone, the company itself. If you want to
skip the whole email exchange and the back and forth we had and just get to the final result,
the timestamp for that will be right up here on your screen, too. All right, let's get started.
So in this email, I just basically asked like, "Is it okay to use swatches we create after getting
them from the free Pantone Connect software? I just want to make sure I'm not violating
your terms or anything." And I think at first they weren't really understanding what I meant,
so I gave an example in the next email. Let's say I see a purple color in Pantone Connect,
and I find a similar color or make one in Adobe. I rename that representative swatch to the Pantone
number I saw in Pantone Connect. So my printer will know which Pantone I want, even though
it's not exactly the same as the actual Pantone swatch for that color. Ok, so then they answered
with this: As long as you're not renaming in a commercial area, it's completely fine.
So, I was pretty confused at this point. And I really had no clue what they meant. So I wrote,
"What does commercial area refer to?" and they responded with, "It's okay, as long as you're not
going to use your renamed colors publicly." So I'm still really confused at this point. So I ended up
giving them a bunch of scenarios and just asking like, "Which ones of these are okay?" Once I did
that, I got handed off to somebody else. That person responded with this. They were basically
worried that the workaround swatches I create would cause printing issues. So then I wrote
an email basically explaining that I've already done this a ton of times because Adobe hasn't
had the current swatches for quite some time. And I've never had any issues with printing because
my printer always has the current Pantone color books, and they can just compare against those.
So finally, I got an answer to my question in the following email. And it says "Renaming swatches
can certainly be done as long as the production or designer getting the artwork has a Pantone guide,
and understands that the color created is a placeholder, rather than a Pantone Spot Color
specified in the art. In many cases, the artwork is sent to a printer to be converted and printed.
By creating a swatch with values that are close to the Pantone specification. If that printer was to
then print the artwork, based on these values, it could lead to variation in intended color.
So when you do the workaround, someone involved needs to have a Pantone book or a Pantone guide."
So I think most of us either work with printers who have Swatch Books, we own Swatch Books
ourselves, or we work for companies that own them. So this definitely makes sense to me. The second
thing you need to do as a designer, when you're using this workaround, is to make sure you convey
that this is a representative or placeholder swatch, and you can do that in the slug area of
your document. Or you can just send an email with that information so the printer knows
not to actually use the swatch. They should be using their Pantone book to get the right
color. That's actually always the case, whether you're using a Pantone swatch or a renamed swatch,
because everybody's screen is different. So the Pantone swatch is going to look different
on every screen, or you can just pay the $8 a month for Pantone Connect software, which is
probably much easier, although I've tested it, and it is a little bit clunky. So for me, it doesn't
really make sense because I don't use Pantone colors hardly at all anymore. If you're using
them all the time though, it's probably worth it to just buy it. By the way, I'm planning to do a
video soon about how to use Pantone Connect... the paid version. So keep an eye out for that.
Once that is completely uploaded, I'll put that in the description below. All right,
I hope you liked this video. If you want to see more videos like this,
just hit the subscribe button and the little bell next to it and you'll be notified every
time a new video comes out. All right, I'll see you in the next video. Thank you!!!