Why "Blue" Is Not Enough

Say you send us your logo and tell us you want it printed in blue. We now have a problem. There are hundreds of blues. Navy? Royal? Baby blue? Teal? Slate? Everyone on our team would mix a slightly different shade based on what "blue" means to them, and none of those would necessarily match what you had in mind.

Before Pantone came along, that's basically how the entire printing industry worked. In the 1950s, a guy named Lawrence Herbert was working part-time at a small New Jersey printing company called M & J Levine Advertising. He had a chemistry degree from Hofstra and noticed the shop was sitting on about 60 different pigments, mixing colors by trial and error. He figured out he could cut that stock down to around 10 base pigments and mix them in precise ratios to produce any color consistently. By 1962, Herbert had bought the company for $50,000 and renamed it Pantone. A year later he published the first Pantone Matching System guide and started selling it to ink manufacturers for $2.50 a book. It caught on fast. Now the system covers over 2,100 standardized colors, and PMS 286 is always PMS 286 whether you're in Richmond or Tokyo. One number, one color, no guessing.

Coated vs. Uncoated: Which One to Use

If you've ever flipped through a Pantone book or looked at swatches online, you've probably noticed that every color has two versions: one ending in C and one ending in U. The C stands for Coated and the U stands for Uncoated. Coated swatches simulate how ink looks on glossy paper, where it sits on the surface and stays vibrant. Uncoated swatches simulate porous paper that absorbs ink, so the color looks flatter and more muted.

Fabric is porous. Cotton absorbs ink. So you'd think we'd use the Uncoated book, but we actually reference the Coated (C) library as our starting point for screen printing. The reason is that screen printing puts down a much thicker ink deposit than paper printing, and on lighter garments or over a white underbase, that thicker layer keeps the color saturated and closer to the Coated swatch. If someone sends us a U code, we can work with it, but just know it's going to look duller on purpose. That's what the U designation means. If you want your brand colors to pop on a custom shirt, send us the C number.

Your Screen Is Lying to You

This comes up constantly. A customer designs their art on a laptop, picks a color that looks perfect on screen, and expects the printed shirt to match exactly. It won't. Screens display color using light (RGB), and every monitor renders that light a little differently. The blue on your MacBook is not the same blue on your office Dell, and neither one is the same blue that comes out of an ink bucket. This isn't a printer problem. It's a physics problem. Light and ink are two completely different systems for producing color. We cover this in more detail in our post on why your shirt doesn't match your screen.

That's why the physical Pantone book matters. It's printed with actual ink on actual paper. When we hold PMS 286 C up next to a freshly printed shirt, we are comparing ink to ink. No screens involved. If your brand has established Pantone values, send those numbers and we'll mix to them. If you only have a digital file with hex values and no Pantone reference, we can cross-reference to the closest match, but there will always be some gap between what a screen shows and what ink on cotton looks like. The Pantone number closes that gap.

What Happens When We Mix Your Color

Pantone's original formulas were built for offset printing, which puts a thin layer of ink on paper. Screen printing is different. We're pushing a thick deposit of plastisol through a mesh screen onto fabric. The ratios from the Pantone formula guide don't translate directly, so we use a mixing system calibrated for textile inks that gets to the same destination through a different route. We weigh base pigments on a scale, mix them according to the adjusted formula, pull a test print, and check it against the physical swatch.

Even then, the final color can shift depending on a few things. The color of the shirt matters the most. A white tee gives you a clean canvas, but printing the same ink on a heather gray or a light blue will change how it reads because the fabric shows through slightly. Blues and purples are especially transparent. On dark garments, we lay down a white underbase first to give the color something bright to sit on, otherwise every shade gets swallowed by the dark fabric underneath. That underbase can lighten the final result a touch, so sometimes we'll mix a shade darker to compensate. Mesh count, ink deposit, and dryer temperature all play a role too. All of it is controlled, but it's worth knowing so you understand why a printed color is a close match to the swatch and not an identical twin.

How to Send Us Your Colors

If you have Pantone numbers, just include them with your order or your email. That is the fastest path to an accurate color match. If you don't have Pantone numbers but you have brand guidelines, send those. Most brand guides list PMS values alongside the RGB and hex codes. If all you have is a logo file and no color specs, we can pull the hex values from it and cross-reference to the closest Pantone match. It won't be a perfect one-to-one conversion since hex and PMS are built on different color models, but it gets us close. You don't need to provide Pantone numbers or any specific format to get started — we work with whatever you send.

The one thing to avoid is picking a color off your phone or laptop screen and expecting it to be exact. If color accuracy matters for your project, and it usually does when brand logos are involved, the Pantone number is the only reliable way to communicate it. We keep current fan decks in the shop and you can browse our Pantone swatch reference online to narrow things down before you reach out.

When Close Enough Is Close Enough

Not every job needs a perfect Pantone match. If you're printing white ink on a black hoodie for a company event, there's not much to worry about. White is white. If you're doing a one-color design in a standard red or navy on white shirts, we can usually get you there with a stock ink and skip the custom mix entirely. Where Pantone matching really earns its keep is when you're printing a brand color that people already recognize — a logo that shows up on your website, your business cards, your signage, and now needs to look the same on a shirt. That's when having a PMS code makes a real difference. It takes the guesswork out for both sides, and it's one of the reasons businesses across Richmond and Hampton Roads come back to us for consistent repeat orders.