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Sometimes an idea is so obvious, it seems a bit nuts that no-one has thought of it before. Our studio partner Paul Finn just came up with this little bit of brilliance: Pantone Swatches. Here’s Paul on how it came about:

“Whilst walking through Regent’s Park Rose Gardens on Bank Holiday Monday I was discussing my love of watches with a friend. I was talking about how my favorite yellow digital watch (which I bought on my honeymoon in Japan) now has a broken strap, I couldn’t find a replacement and couldn’t travel all the way to Tokyo to buy a new one. I was telling my friend how much I’d love it if Swatch was to join forces with Pantone to create a whole plethora of coloured swatches. The conversation morphed into how you could create your own Pantone Swatch watch and pick any colour for the individual straps, the watch face and casing. We felt that the numbers, hands and date should be unchangeable.

I brought up the idea in the pub last night and Ben from Stylo coined Pantone Swatch as the title! Inspired. I spoke with Alistair this morning and he’s taken it a step further and created some fantastic mock-ups. We hope that the people from Swatch and Pantone will see this and think that it’s a great idea (and invite us to build an incredible website in which you can make your own watch) and we will be wearing our very own Pantone Swatches for ever!”

Pantone are already knocking out a range of products through collaborations with various designers: there are Whitbread Wilkinson’s ubiquitous Pantone mugs, Barber Osgerby’s draw-joppingly lovely Flight Stools (below), and a host of other bits, from spectacles to courier bags (check out this comprehensive list of Pantone products from If It’s Hip, It’s Here.)

via wemadethis