Like many inventions, the Pantone design system was born of frustration. Sick of clients complaining that the colours delivered on their jobs differed from those agreed, Lawrence Herbert, an employee in the early 1960s at Pantone, an American printing company, decided to create a universal colour-matching system for designers, printers and customers. Within a few years his elegant decks of cards featuring tinted, coded rectangles had become ubiquitous in studios worldwide.

More recently the Pantone brand has been making a play for the consumer market. Its product range, featuring the distinctive blocks of colour, even includes a series of mugs in varying shades of brown, a fun wheeze for tea drinkers seeking the perfect brew. How disappointing then that its latest offering, a book charting the evolution of colour during the 20th century, is rather dry in tone with an ugly, old-fashioned layout.

There are, however, ideas and images to cherish in this decade-by-decade gallop through 100 years of (predominantly American) fashion, interiors, toys, art, advertising and products  from Rose O'Neill's giggling Kewpie babies of the early 1900s, to the vivid 1930s Bakelite billiard balls used in American pool halls, or the candy-colours of Japanese anime.

There are also fascinating visual examples of how tastes developed along with social changes: images of Edwardian women in pale, muted ensembles make way for 1920s flappers sporting red lipstick and bright pinks and apricot tones  heralded, we are told, by "American women [being] granted the right to vote  and set afire by the 18th amendment's prohibition of alcohol". While Kate Middleton's outfits hog the headlines today, the book shows Lady Diana in brown corduroys, green wellies and regal red, embodying the Sloane Ranger look of the early 1980s.

But the book's broad focus is its stumbling block. Restricted to 190 pages, the authors are only able to offer school textbook level overviews of each era and generalisations that often don't convince. Why not create a book for each category? Or one for each decade? I was left with more questions than answers by glimpses into the art world's changing relationship with colour, about how Edward Hopper used "rich, promising colours to depict silence and isolation" or why the Cubists rejected the decorative colours of the Fauves.

Yet design geeks or vintage lovers shouldn't dismiss it entirely. While no match for the beauty of the company's trademark swatch books, it does contain a treasure trove of retro images which in turn inspired me to ponder my own history in colour  happy family holidays in a 1970s orange tent, floral Laura Ashley party frocks, a grey school uniform set off by odd fluorescent socks. It's a worthwhile addition to the coffee table pile for that fuzzy glow of nostalgia alone.