COLOUR PRINTING

1, 2, 3 and 4 COLOURS and SPOT COLOUR

This information is about commercial colour printing.When you see images printed in full colour (photographs, illustrations) it is a good bet that four colour printing was used. What does that mean?

FOUR COLOUR PRINTING Four coloured inks are used to recreate all the colours you see on a printed page. It is usually referred to as full colour printing, four colour printing, process printing or CYMK printing. You should already know this from printing from your computer using an inkjet printer.

These are the four colours:Cyan (blue), Yellow, Magenta, and Black (known as “K”) - K is used for black because it represents the Keyline or key plate, the printing plate that the other plates (C, Y, M are aligned to) hence K.

With one exception, this is the most expensive of the printing processes. The cost is higher because each sheet of paper is run through the press four times. The cost comes from the fact that the press has to be set up for each ink. The exception is that printing can get even more expensive when spot colour(s), coatings and varnishes are added.

A couple of things to keep in mind if money needs to be saved. One and two colour printing is cheaper (more information later), and think carefully before printing with three colour because, price wise, you are coming into four colour price territory so you may as well use four colour printing.

ONE COLOUR, TWO COLOUR PRINTING

ONE COLOUR – L: blue; R: blue (added interest due to printing on coloured paper)

One colour means you are printing one colour – but it does not have to be black. It could be a colour like blue or red or whatever. SEE 'SPOT COLOUR' BELOW

TWO COLOURS – L: red and blue- this logo has been printed using 2 SPOT COLOURS (more later) which means that the inks are mixed to obtain the real/official colours of the College; R: red and black

For printing brochures, business cards, letterheads and newsletters, you should consider two colour printing. When you print with just two colours (which can include the varying shades of each colour), you can achieve the necessary impact but at far less cost. By using two colours you can:

Establish a mood.

Reinforce your corporate identity.

Organize or add selective emphasis to your messages.

SPOT COLOUR

CYMK are the colours used for four colour printing and SPOT COLOURS are either used in the two colour print process or as a fifth colour to four colour printing. Pantone is the brand name of the ink most commonly used by commercial printers for SPOT COLOURS. There are different brands of spot colour inks, but the dominant spot colour printing system is PANTONE. The Pantone Matching System or PMS consists of over 1,000 colours of ink. Other spot colour systems include TOYO, DIC, and ANPA.

You saw the 'RAMS' logo (below) on the previous page as an example of two colour printing. The image alongside is an example of four colour printing plus a SPOT COLOUR. The Pantone here is a vibrant red which simply wasn't possible using just CMYK inks.

A SPOT COLOUR is a specific colour based on a prescribed formula by the Pantone company. Think of spot colours like a paint display at the home improvement store – all those colours, all those tints. Spot colours are very much like that. If you are printing in two colour, and you have your heart set on 'tangerine orange' SEE NEXT PAGE, your printer will mix that specific colour according to the Pantone formula. Hundreds of colours are available. You inform your printer of the colour you have chosen by its identification code in a swatch book SEE ABOVE. For example, the colours of the Shell logo are red (Pantone 485) and yellow (Pantone 116). This standardised colour matching system ensures that printing in different locations and with different printers reproduces the exact same colour by referring to the Pantone Matching System Colour Guides. You also need to add a spot colour for any metallic and fluorescent colours.

Pantone has now ventured out into the mainstream. A company that had previously been known primarily among the design set — from graphic design to fashion and home – has now found a new wave of fans thanks to a cosmetics collaboration with Sephora and a huge product licensing push that has sent out Pantone colour chip-inspired products in the form of mugs, iPhone covers, chairs, ornaments, bedding, a hotel and more.

Spot colours can be printed more consistently than a CMYK four colour process across multiple pages of a multi-page catalogue, or across multiple printed pieces or even product types. If you need a standard logo colour on a brochure, a plastic credit card or something like a metal product, a spot colour can more easily be matched on all of them. A unique, readily identifiable spot colour is sometimes used by companies to create a brand colour that is used on all their marketing and products.

In 2012 (UK only), after fighting for almost eight years, Cadbury finally won a high court battle over its trademark of a certain shade of the colour purple. The chocolate company applied for the trademark back in October 2004, registering:The colour purple (Pantone 2685C) applied to the whole visible surface or being the predominant colour applied to the whole visible surface, of the packaging of the goods [for] chocolate in bar and tablet form, chocolate confectionery, chocolate assortments, cocoa-based beverages, chocolate-based beverages, preparations for chocolate-based beverages, chocolate cakes.

Nestlé, Cadbury's biggest rival, opposed the trademark. Their legal argument included that that shade of purple had no distinctive character. Nestlé won in part, with the ruling that Cadbury's trademark would only apply to chocolate bars and drinking chocolate, but the trademark was allowed as the colour has been distinctive of Cadbury for milk chocolate since 1914.

STYLE GUIDE

Many businesses and organisations produce a Style Guide - a document which lists their corporate colours in CMYK, RGB and Pantone (PMS), and all fonts used for their logo and stationery items. This is to ensure proper use and standardisation.Here are links to some of them -