“Color,” Laurie Pressman says, “is the language of life.”
This is just one of many color-related phrases that Pressman, who serves as the vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, repeats like mantras: red is passion and energy; blue is seriousness and stability. Purple is royalty. And according to Pressman, purple is having a moment, a fact that is reflected by what’s happening on the floor of Pantone’s Carlstadt, New Jersey factory on the day Mental Floss visits in late 2016.
Pantone—the company behind the ubiquitous booklets of color chips and formulas nearly all designers use to choose and create colors for corporate logos, products, clothes, and more—is the world’s preeminent authority on color. In the years since its creation in the mid-20th century, the Pantone Matching System has become an icon, enjoying cult status in the design world. But even if someone has never needed to design anything in their life, they probably know what a Pantone chip looks like.