<story><title>“Tomato” versus “#FF6347” – the tragicomic history of CSS color names</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/tomato-versus-ff6347-the-tragicomic-history-of-css-color-names</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nlh</author><text>Funny - I had a conversation with a friend about this exact topic the other day.&lt;p&gt;Painting a few (old) walls in my apartment.  I asked the original designer what color they were, and she confidently replied &amp;quot;Swiss Coffee&amp;quot;.  Great!  So I got to Lowes only to find out....there are about 35 different variations on Swiss Coffee.&lt;p&gt;We seem to have solved the color issue when it comes to programming - hex codes are (relatively) easy.  Why are we still choosing our home paints based on horribly arbitrary names like &amp;quot;Shadow Mist&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Lily Pond&amp;quot; ... ?&lt;p&gt;(And yes, I know the actual answer - branding!  Why would you buy Brand A over Brand B if all the colors get commoditized into hex codes....the answer is...you wouldn&amp;#x27;t.  So?  Fancy names for everyone!)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>542458</author><text>It has been more or less solved - it&amp;#x27;s called the Pantone Color system. That said, it doesn&amp;#x27;t really work the way you&amp;#x27;d expect. It&amp;#x27;ll get you close (say, if you need a consistent color for your brand), but a pantone color on it&amp;#x27;s own isn&amp;#x27;t enough to define a material.&lt;p&gt;The issue with defining physical colour codes is that it gets really complicated when you consider finish. With screen color, you have only one finish, and that&amp;#x27;s whatever the user&amp;#x27;s monitor happens to have. With paints and plastics the finish (how glossy the surface is, how metallic it is, coated or uncoated, inclusions like metal flake, etc) really messes things up. This tends to &amp;quot;break&amp;quot; systems like Pantone, and means that it&amp;#x27;s really hard to choose a few variables to absolutely define a color.</text></comment>
<story><title>“Tomato” versus “#FF6347” – the tragicomic history of CSS color names</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/tomato-versus-ff6347-the-tragicomic-history-of-css-color-names</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nlh</author><text>Funny - I had a conversation with a friend about this exact topic the other day.&lt;p&gt;Painting a few (old) walls in my apartment.  I asked the original designer what color they were, and she confidently replied &amp;quot;Swiss Coffee&amp;quot;.  Great!  So I got to Lowes only to find out....there are about 35 different variations on Swiss Coffee.&lt;p&gt;We seem to have solved the color issue when it comes to programming - hex codes are (relatively) easy.  Why are we still choosing our home paints based on horribly arbitrary names like &amp;quot;Shadow Mist&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Lily Pond&amp;quot; ... ?&lt;p&gt;(And yes, I know the actual answer - branding!  Why would you buy Brand A over Brand B if all the colors get commoditized into hex codes....the answer is...you wouldn&amp;#x27;t.  So?  Fancy names for everyone!)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zyxley</author><text>Pantone uses coded colors (e.g. things like &amp;quot;#106U Bright Yellow&amp;quot;), with each having RGB and CMYK values, physical ink-mixing proportions for custom printing, paint standards, etc.&lt;p&gt;From what I understand it&amp;#x27;s pretty popular with corporate marketing because it takes the hassle out of getting extremely consistent colors across different physical and digital media.</text></comment>