The present invention relates to a method for encoding the color of an object in multispectral form by adaptive compression, characterized in that said method comprises the following steps: determining an identifier of the color in the form of a logistics-dedicated code and having a European Article Numbering (EAN), Universal Product Code (UPC), or Domain Name System (DNS) distributed management structure; inserting a marker at the beginning of said code indicating that the code is a color code, as well as the type of storage; and creating a color encoding that can be interpreted by both a human being and a computer by being directly read, in the form of three elements, i.e. a sample of the color or of texture, a name, and a barcode/chip, using said code and the marker, which provides access to the bidirectional spectral reflectance of the color stored either locally or on a network, or both locally and on a network, and having a rendering model that is predetermined by said marker. The present invention likewise relates to an associated decoding method.