Don’t See Red When Trying to Understand Color

            Have you ever been PMS 347 with envy as you painted the town 032 red?  Or perhaps acted like a C-0/M-0/Y-61/K-1-bellied coward completely out of the C-100/M-66/Y-0/K-2? Is it possible to be in the process black on a fireball red letter day?  Not only do we “see” color, but we inevitably “speak” color, too.  But, do we actually “understand” color, especially as it applies to printing?

            In the world of printing, there exists three different ways to define color.  Depending upon the artwork created, precise colors needed and budget available, your printer can help you determine which method of color printing best suits your needs.

• RGB color, based on the three primary colors of the color wheel (red, green and blue), is usually used to create the colors seen on your computer display and other electronic devices.  These three colors are converted to dots and assigned brightness values to produce various colors.  By illuminating the dots to different values, over 16 million colors can potentially be seen.  Most digital displays are restricted to how many colors can be displayed because of hardware limitations.  Generally, if your artwork is created in RGB color, it is best to reassign the colors prior to printing.

• Spot color, also known as solid color, is a unique formula of color precisely mixed and labeled with a “Pantone Matching System” (PMS) color number specifically designated for that color.  There are over 1,100 PMS colors, which are all derived from a unique mixture of 14 basic colors.  Spot colors are most commonly used in corporate logos and identity programs because of the exact match that is necessary in branding and recognition.  This is a cost effective way of printing if only a few colors are needed, as each color requires a printing plate. 

• Process color or full-color, also known as CMYK, is based on separating any color image into four distinct colors – cyan, magenta, yellow and black and assigning a percentage to each color.  Small dots are produced for each color during this separation and applied at different angles on separate printing plates.  When printing using this method, the four colors are printed one on top of another to form the desired color.  Process color is most advantageous when printing photographs and other complex colored graphics.

            Two techniques are used in the printing industry to get the “most” out of a single color. One method is to create a half-tone using a very fine screen.  This process turns the darker areas of an object into larger dots and lighter areas into smaller dots.  When printed, the ink coverage is determined by the size of the dots.  Newspapers use this technique, in a somewhat unrefined manner, making the dots actually visible when viewed closely.  Another technique, using a transparency, can be applied by the graphic designer and the results viewed on the computer display.  This is a method by which one color is altered by adjusting the percentage of color applied. For example, a corporate logo could have the appearance of three different colors of blue, yet the design actually originates from a single color, one at full color percentage and the other two at different transparency percentage levels.

            Why does color matter?  A study conducted by the University of Loyola in Maryland concluded that color increases brand recognition by up to 80 percent.  Think about colors used in corporate logos like UPS (brown), EBAY (red, blue, yellow, green) and Adobe (bright red and black).  Without realizing it, we have all come to recognize not just the logo, but the color scheme of the logo as well.  It would seem very unusual to see a Pepsi can adorned in yellow and green, instead of the familiar red and blue.  It would also be very unusual if different shades of the familiar red and blue were printed on the can.  This is where the importance of color matching in printing is indispensable. Your print job may not involve definitive ink color matching, but if it does, it is imperative that you tell your printer exactly what color is necessary, before the job goes to press. 

            As children, we saw basic colors and learned their names.  Over the years, our discriminating eyes and vocabulary have been trained to recognize the difference between colors such as blue and periwinkle, red and mauve, purple and violet, green and avocado.  But, in the language of the printer, color is so complex that the descriptive name must go a step further.  So, don’t be afraid if out of the blue you set out to paint the town red…just be sure to let your printer know just how blue (PMS 283; C-35/M-9/Y-0/K-0) and how red (PMS 1795; C-0/M-9/Y-100/K-0)!