Used correctly, colour can bring a publication to life and make your marketing message ‘pop’ off the page.
Getting colour right is, however, more complex than it seems – particularly if you want your corporate colours to look consistent across a variety of media.
Confused by colour? Here’s our quick reference guide:
Colour by numbers (and letters)
If you ask for information on the colours that make up a company logo, it might be provided in one of the following formats:
RGB – stands for red, green and blue and is often used as the default colour system for designing materials to be used online.
CMYK – stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. This four-ink process can be used to reproduce a huge variety of colours in print.
Pantone – A Pantone reference is a popular way to communicate the exact colour you desire. The reference allows us to reproduce your colour accurately using the four-ink CMYK process described above or as a spot colour, similarly to how paint is mixed. Some special colours like metallics might have to be reproduced separately. We can keep you right on that.
Same ink, different results
If you use the same Pantone reference to print onto different materials, you won’t necessarily get consistent results. Why not? Because items such as letterheads, business cards and glossy brochures use different paper stocks, which may be coated or uncoated. What looks bright and vibrant on a coated paper (which essentially acts as a primer for your ink) might look dull on uncoated paper. This is because uncoated paper tends to act like a sponge, absorbing the ink – and your lovely colour.
The solution: Luckily the Pantone system has colour references for both coated and uncoated papers – look for the ‘C’ or ‘U’ beside the reference. Remember too, that we are here to advise.
