Pantone Announces 2024 Color of the Year – Can You Print It?

Pantone has released its 2024 Color of the Year – “Pantone 13-1023 Peach Fuzz”.  According to Pantone: “Subtly sensual, PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz is a heartfelt peach hue bringing a feeling of kindness and tenderness, communicating a message of caring and sharing, community and collaboration…Poetic and romantic, a clean peach tone with a vintage vibe, PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz reflects the past yet has been refashioned with a contemporary ambiance.”

Peach Fuzz is reported as:

  • sRGB 255, 190, 152
  • Hex FFBE98
  • L*a*b 83.16, 22.40, 30.15.

Pantone 13-2023 Peach Fuzz, Courtesy of Pantone

While this color may be attractive for designers and marketers, the ability for printed products to achieve this color may prove to be challenging cost-effectively without specified spot color inks, additional print units on press, or additional press runs unless expanded gamut printing is possible. The decision to utilize this color on press or graphically may require the 7-color CMYK+ orange, green, and violet (OGV) Idealliance beta ECG dataset or a most cost-prohibitive approach running the color as a spot color, requiring either a dedicated press unit or additional press run, along with specially formulated ink.

Upon further analysis, the only current industry-wide specification for print that can attain this color currently without a specific spot color ink is the Idealliance ECG beta dataset. Download the current Idealliance ECG Beta Profile here.

Figure 1. Image courtesy of ColorThink Pro.

Pantone 13-1023 (black point) plotted on a Lab color space with Idealliance ECG beta profile. As the point is partially visible (Figure 1), Peach Fuzz lies on the outer edge of the gamut.

Figure 2. Image courtesy of ColorThink Pro.

Pantone 13-1023 (black point) can be seen on the edge of the Idealliance ECG beta profile gamut, (Figure 2, shown in wireframe). Other conventional commercial and packaging profiles are plotted as well, including GRACoL 2013, Fogra 39, and JapanColor 2011, showing the distance between Pantone 13-1023, and the edges of those gamuts and their attainable color space. L*a*b 83.16, 22.40, 30.15 lies far outside of virtually all other print specifications, even other ECG print specifications. While PrintWide® presents a low delta E (2000), the gamut still falls short of Pantone 13-1023 Peach Fuzz.

Visually output, Pantone 13-1023 Peachfuzz would be difficult to match on conventional commercial print outputs, even in ideal scenarios. Only the Idealliance ECG beta profile appears to be a close visual match. PrintWide, while not a typical output condition in its design, does reproduce Pantone 10-1023 with a low delta, indicating its usefulness as an intended transfer space for working color.

Surprisingly, Peach Fuzz also appears to be outside of the gamut of the widely used sRGB specification, posing a challenge to designers and creatives to utilize this color in their workflows. The Pantone specification likely refers to the standard RGB definition rather than sRGB, which does not contain this color within its gamut.

Figure 3. Image courtesy of ColorThink Pro.

Pantone 13-1023 is indicated by the black dot in the gamut view above (Figure 3). As the dot is visible in this render, the color plotted in a Lab color space is outside the typical sRGB icc profile.

Similarly, on the L* 82 axis, Pantone 13-1023 can be seen outside of the gamut cross-section. (Figure 4)

Figure 4. Image courtesy of ColorThink Pro.

Figure 5. Image courtesy of ColorThink Pro.

A vector of the defined Pantone 13-1023 color (pink line, Figure 5), to the sRGB color space (blue gamut, Figure 5) is shown above. The length of the line shows the transition necessary to convert the color to the sRGB gamut, and the difference (delta) between those two points. This delta indicates the visual disparity even from the specified sRGB color space and the specified LAB color.

The ability to output a color, either in a graphic design environment or print production environment, is a critical factor in any product, brand, or marketing workflow. As designers and creatives set out to design products inspired by the color of the year, their ultimate usage will dictate their success as this “heartfelt peach hue” will be difficult to produce. The designation of any spot color, whether a brand color, trend color like Pantone 13-1023 Peach Fuzz, or other color specification, according to how it will be utilized, is critically important. Both the designers designing with this color, as well as the printers printing to this color, must be in alignment to understand the entire design and production workflow for these intended products and how they will be output. 

To learn more about color management and the use of spot colors in design, print, and graphic communication workflows, Color Management Professional® Creative Online training & certification is now available for designers and creatives to achieve industry-recognized certification, according to leading specifications across print and creative workflows for optimal workflow alignment. 

Start your journey in color optimization and standardized color management and process control through Idealliance & PRINTING United Alliance training & certification, available at iLEARNING+ and www.idealliance.org

Also Tagged: Pre-Press
Jordan Gorski Executive Director

Jordan Gorski is an Idealliance certified G7 Expert, CMP Master, and BrandQ Expert and supports the global printing and packaging supply chain through his work with Idealliance as Executive Director. He has over 15 years of experience in the industry, starting in pre-media and data-driven marketing and technical service, along with experience as a technical advisor and product manager in the flexographic printing and packaging industry, where he offered his professional expertise to printers, publishers, packaging printers and converters.

Jordan has a degree in Graphic Communications from Clemson University and joined Idealliance in 2017. Since joining Idealliance, Jordan has worked across the association to support training & certification programs, global partners and international affiliates, and serves as the staff liaison for ISO’s Technical Committee 130, Committee for Graphic Arts Technical Standards (CGATS), U.S. Technical Advisory Group (USTAG), the International Color Consortium (ICC) and Idealliance’s Print Properties Committee (PPC), driving global standards and innovation across the supply chain with Idealliance as part of PRINTING United Alliance.

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