CARLSTADT, N.J.--June 10, 2002--Richard Herbert, president of Pantone, Inc., the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced the formation of PANTONE Custom Color Services, a new division. Backed by four decades of color expertise and unique color reproduction capabilities, PANTONE Custom Color Services will focus on providing custom color standards for corporate managers and art directors in fashion, home, contract design, paint, beauty, automotive, sports, pharmaceutical - any industry requiring color accuracy. Pantone Vice President Michael Garin will direct the division. "For many companies, color is synonymous with their name," explained Herbert. "Think Barbie Pink, UPS Brown, Coca-Cola Red, Home Depot Orange and 3M Post-It Canary Yellow. To be successful, brands have to offer consistency and reliability and be distinguishable from other goods and services. Keeping that color consistent in products, packaging and communications in every media is imperative to maintaining the brand's identity, visually reinforcing who they are and what they do. Many companies even go as far as to trademark their signature colors." With PANTONE Custom Color Services, companies are able to take advantage of Pantone's state-of-the-art printing equipment and unparalleled color matching with color cards for color-critical catalogs and product brochures. A quantity of color cards showing any number of colors, whether PANTONE Colors or custom matched, can be reproduced in spot color, four-color process or Hexachrome six-color process, which has an extended gamut and can reproduce approximately 90% of the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM Colors. This is useful for industries such as printing inks, art materials, roofing tiles, embroidery thread, paint, cosmetics, and other businesses that require color cards demonstrating their range. PANTONE Custom Color Services also provides products to specify corporate identity, product color and packaging standards, including color standards showing one or more PANTONE Colors or custom colors on paper, cotton or custom substrates, as well as the corresponding CMYK, HTML and RGB values. After creating custom colors and color combinations for a client, Pantone generates an exclusive ink formula for the client that it sends to its 1,000+ ink licensees around the world. Pantone has developed custom color branding standards for prominent industry leaders, including IBM, Mattel, Gap, Coach, Clinique and Estee Lauder. These standards can be applied to the myriad ways companies use color, including: --  Packaging, labels, hang tags --  Advertising campaigns --  Point-of-purchase displays, merchandising materials --  Business cards, letterhead, folders, labels --  Web pages, presentations --  Uniforms, vehicles --  Exhibits, posters, CD-ROMs, videotapes --  News releases, announcements, fact sheets, publications "Colors relate to specific psychological messages," explained Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. "Color choice goes beyond being beautiful or eye-catching - it leads consumers down the path to attachment and loyalty to specific products. Inaccurate color can devastate brand integrity. If a brand's colors are reproduced incorrectly, the meaning ordinarily conveyed by the graphic identity becomes distorted." Pricing & Availability PANTONE Custom Color Services is able to accommodate the specific needs of individual companies. More information is available by contacting Pantone at (888) PANTONE or http://www.pantone.com