You may have heard your designer or printer ask for the Pantone colour or PMS code when you’re doing a one colour print or choosing a strong brand colour.

The Pantone company cleverly devised a universal colour matching system for printers and designers to specify and control colours for printing projects eg: if you have a specific PMS red in your logo, by having that code it will be the same red that’s used across all your print and production.

I could go into the technicalities and theories of colour but that’s a whole other complex story (if you’re really nerdy you can read all about here - link to colour article). For now, let’s focus on the basics that affect file types and their uses.