The color monopoly
20 July 2024·22 min
In 2022, artist Stuart Semple opened up his laptop to find that all his designs had turned black overnight. All the colors, across files on Adobe products like…
Also available on
Show notes
In 2022, artist Stuart Semple opened up his laptop to find that all his designs had turned black overnight. All the colors, across files on Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator, were gone. Who had taken the colors away? The story of what happened begins with one company, Pantone.
Pantone is known for their Color of the Year forecasts, but they actually make the bulk of their money from selling color reference guides. These guides are the standard for how designers pretty much anywhere talk about color.
On today's show, how did Pantone come to control the language of the rainbow? We look back at the history of Pantone, beginning with the man who made Pantone into the industry standard. And, we hear from Stuart, who tried to break the color monopoly.
Share your thoughts — What color should we choose to be Planet Money's color?
This episode was hosted by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Jeff Guo, and produced by Willa Rubin with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Debbie Daughtry with help from Carl Craft. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.
Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.
To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Pantone is known for their Color of the Year forecasts, but they actually make the bulk of their money from selling color reference guides. These guides are the standard for how designers pretty much anywhere talk about color.
On today's show, how did Pantone come to control the language of the rainbow? We look back at the history of Pantone, beginning with the man who made Pantone into the industry standard. And, we hear from Stuart, who tried to break the color monopoly.
Share your thoughts — What color should we choose to be Planet Money's color?
This episode was hosted by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Jeff Guo, and produced by Willa Rubin with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Debbie Daughtry with help from Carl Craft. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.
Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.
To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Share this episode
From the host
Is your organisation telling the right story?
I offer a free 20-minute conversation called the Story Session. I'll look at how your organisation is currently telling its story, identify the one story you should be telling but aren't, and give you a concrete idea for what to do about it.
No charge. No preparation. No obligation. If that's you, or if you know someone it might be for, I'd love to hear from you.
Book a Story Session[STORY_SESSION_URL pending]