Getting Pantone support with kuler

It's often that I hear folks talk about how wonderful kuler is, but it's also often that I hear print designers complain that they wish they could also find Pantone colors with kuler as well. After all, getting RGB or even CMYK values doesn't help them when they need to assign a Pantone color to a logo or a job they are working on.

Well, if you have Illustrator CS3 (and my survey says that more than half of you do), then you'll be happy to know that your worries are no more. The Live Color feature in Illustrator CS3 can easily provide that information. In fact, with kuler also available from within Illustrator, it's literally a few clicks of a mouse to turn any kuler theme of colors into Pantone equivalents.

I've recorded a video podcast over at Terry White's most excellent Creative Suite Podcast site, that shows the exact steps you need to follow to:

1. Use Illustrator's kuler panel to find color themes
2. Add kuler themes to Illustrator's Swatches panel
3. Use Live Color to convert kuler themes to Pantone equivalents
4. Export Pantone kuler themes from Illustrator as .ASE files
5. Import Pantone kuler themes into InDesign

In somewhat related news, X-Rite has recently announced that they are acquiring Pantone. X-Rite has been pretty successful in the digital color space, while Pantone is considered by many to be the standard system used not only in the print world, but in textiles and even interior design as well. Time will only tell what this means for designers moving forward, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on. More info here.