March was a busy month. I started it out on the 1^st of March in London, where X-Rite Pantone unveiled PantoneLIVE to an enthusiastic audience of journalists, consultants, designers, converters and brand owners. The company has positioned this cloud-based solution as a transformational change in color management set to revolutionize the way color is managed across the supply chain, from inspiration to the store shelf. The company has chosen to focus first on the packaging supply chain and then will expand PantoneLIVE capabilities to other industry segments.

In today’s global economy, brand owners are faced with an increasingly complex supply chain. They are dealing with printers in a wide range of different countries, using a variety of production processes on a range of different substrates. As one could imagine, this can result in a broad variation of color outcomes across that broad color network.

With PantoneLIVE, Pantone has created a cloud-based color database accessible by all authorized constituents in the brand’s color network. Pantone works with brand owners to identify accurate color specifications for their brand colors and to create precise spectral definitions for each color, essentially defining the color’s digital DNA. Then using a secure web portal, brand owners can select digitized palettes and associated substrates for each project, ensuring color integrity throughout the entire process, across a variety of production technologies and substrate types.