Pantone and Pantyhose

In the 1960s Lawrence Herbert came up with the universal language of color, called Pantone. He was tired of each manufacturer having their own colors for specific shades. When you ordered a color like "wheat," you never knew exactly which "wheat" color you would get.

So he created a unified system where each shade was a number, sort like Hex color codes.

 “If somebody in New York wanted something printed in Tokyo, they would simply open up the book and say, ‘Give me Pantone 123,’ ” Herbert says; 123 (a daffodil yellow) would look exactly the same the world over. Herbert created a sample page to show how the system worked and sent it to ink makers. Fifty years later, he still owns a copy of that page: “I’ve got it right here in my office in Palm Beach.” Read more about Pantone at the New York Times. 

What’s the most unusual use of the Pantone system? Calvin Klein kept a Pantone chip in the kitchen to signal to his chef what color he wanted his coffee to be.