Formula Guide, Limited Edition Pantone Color of the Year 2026
Visualise and communicate colour for graphics and print
Pantone’s best-selling guide for design inspiration, colour specification, and printing accuracy is now available as a limited edition to celebrate the Pantone Color of the Year 2026. This special edition features both coated and uncoated guides, with beautiful soft-touch covers in PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer. This white’s subtle presence acts as a whisper of calm in a noisy world. PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer is a conscious statement of simplification in a frenetic society that is rediscovering the value of measured consideration and quiet reflection. Like a blank canvas, PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer signifies our desire for a fresh start. It opens up space for creativity, letting our imagination wander, so new insights and bold ideas can emerge and take shape. Inside, you’ll find a full page of Cloud Dancer, details on why Pantone selected the color for 2026, and a complete history of past Pantone Colors of the Year.
Share, compare, communicate, and match colours with the new edition of the Pantone Formula Guide. This versatile, end-to-end colour-matching tool displays all 2,390 market-driven spot colours in the Pantone Graphics System on coated and uncoated paper stocks. Now updated with 224 brand new Pantone Matching System (PMS) colours, the latest Pantone Formula Guide also features five new eco-friendly Pantone base mixing inks compatible with coating in print production processes. Compact, handheld fan decks provide easy, on-the-go physical references for the actual appearance of Pantone Colours in digital design applications, and include essential formulations for mixing spot colour inks to match Pantone Formula Guide colours correctly.
Key Features
- Helps ensure consistent colour reproduction in branding, logos, marketing, packaging and other graphic design applications on a range of different materials
- Portable, handheld fan decks provide easy on-the-go reference
- Versatile end-to-end tool for everything from design inspiration to press check
- Printed on most commonly used paper stock weights: 100 lb (168 gsm) coated and 80 lb uncoated (118 gsm)
- The lighting indicator page demonstrates when lighting conditions are suitable for proper colour evaluation
- Considered the ultimate tool for inspiring, matching and communicating colour to those in graphic design, digital design, product design and printing
Colours
- 224 new, on-trend, market-relevant graphics colours added plus 5 new Basic Colours
- Includes 2,390 total colours with gamut in the Pantone Graphics System
- Enhanced printing process provides improved colour accuracy
- Pantone Colours displayed with their corresponding numbers and ink formulations
- The index in the back of the guide offers a numeric location for each colour
- Tolerance aim < 2.0 ∆E00 to Pantone master standard reference data
Application
- Use for inspiration and production in designing logos, branding and marketing materials, packaging, and for additional applications such as architecture, industrial design, and manufacturing
- Ink formulations help printers accurately achieve Pantone Spot colours on printed materials
- Used to communicate consistent colour throughout workflow and supply chain around the world
