The colors on your screen will never be a perfect match to the colors you see printed on paper. And the colors you get from your color laser printer will never be a perfect match to the colors printed by a professional printer. And if one vendor produces output for you on a digital press and another produces output for you on an offset press, those colors won’t be an accurate match either. That is why it is so important to understand how to talk about and represent your corporate colors in an effort to maintain consistent branding.
I have spent a lot of time explaining color over the years (I counted at least 5 blog posts that I’ve shared on this topic alone). As getting colors produced correctly and consistently continues to be a challenge for many, I want to revisit the terminology professionals use to talk about color in an effort to help businesspeople get the results they intend.
Hex and RGB Colors
Hex and RGB are two different methods for identifying color values on a screen.
Hex (short for hexadecimal) employs a base-16 numbering system to identify a color with a combination of numbers and letters. It is most commonly used by programmers and web developers where its abbreviated format provides for clean code. You might recognize the Hex code for pure red when it looks like this: #FF0000.
RGB is an abbreviation for Red Green Blue and is the foundational model used for television. It is more commonly used today for photo editing and graphic design and for instances where you need to change opacity easily. The RGB code for pure red looks like this: rgb(255, 0, 0) and is distinguished by full intensity of the red position and zero intensity of the blue and green channel.
PMS or Pantone Colors
PMS is an abbreviation for Pantone Matching System and is the proprietary color system founded by a chemist in 1963 and standard used most often by graphic designers, commercial printers and brands around the world for print production. Unlike other color systems, which are a mix of colors, PMS printing process uses pre-mixed inks (like paint) to get color consistency again and again.
Because PMS colors aren’t created by mixing other colors together, there is no equivalent to pure red. However, Pantone recognizes “Pantone Red” as Pantone 032, but they also note that Pantone 185 is actually the closest match to RGB (255,0,0).
Looking for Coca Cola Red? It’s proprietary! Like the recipe for their beverage, Coke considers the formula for their red to be proprietary as well.
CMYK
CMYK is an abbreviation for Cyan Magenta Yellow Black. When your commercial or desktop printer takes your images and print them using a mixture of colors, these are the base colors they mix in order to create your colors.
If you build your design file using images that are color specified in the CMYK format, then what you see at the commercial printer should most closely correlate. But if you build your files with PMS colors and then allow your printer to output in CMYK, there is no guarantee for color control unless you specify production of a spot color (i.e., a 5-color press job that runs CYMK + your PMS).
Further, if your printer gang runs your output with work from another customer and your file is largely pink and their file is largely red (for example), the pressman will attempt to color correct for the most pleasing color across the press run. This may result in an undesirable outcome, such as your file suddenly leaning more red.
You can control for this by avoiding gang run production; however, many times businesses are unaware that their product will be produced in a gang run or need to accept gang run printing in order to get the best pricing (think business cards).
Confused by Color?
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the options, that is understandable. You don’t need to manage every color conversion yourself, though. When working with a designer on a critical asset like a logo, ask for a brand guide that records the approved Pantone color, its closest CMYK values for process printing and RGB and HEX values for digital use. Keep those specifications with your logo files so everyone producing materials has the same reference.
Before ordering print materials, tell the printer which colors are critical and ask whether the job will use a Pantone spot ink or a CMYK approximation. If the color accuracy is especially important, discuss the paper and printing method and request a physical proof. Where an exact match isn’t possible, agree on the closest acceptable result and record it for future projects.
This blog is courtesy of Jennifer Koon, MMC Founder and Principal Consultant.