Pantone Goes Nude with New 'SkinTone Guide'

We’ve come a long way from that “Flesh” Crayola crayon (the Civil Rights Act nudged the company to rename it “Peach” in 1962). This week, our color-obsessed friends at Pantone debut their SkinTone Guide (pictured), which promises to “match and reproduce lifelike skin tones in a variety of industries.” A boon for those toiling in the color-correction trenches, the 110-hue fandeck and accompanying software is based on more than 1,000 human skin measurements—taken by Pantone pros with non-invasive gadgets such as spectrophotometers and spectro-colorimeters—that represent a broad range of ethnicities and age groups.