CMYK, RGB, SPOT, PANTONE… what does it all mean? Well, in the world of design, learning the language could be what leads you to a fruitful relationship with your printer and the ability to achieve the colourful reproductions that your heart desires.
If you’re set up in business and you decide that you want to design your own flyers, brochures and stationery then you need to get in touch with the basics of colour so that you don’t get your printer’s back up or cost yourself more money.
So, what do you need to know? You need to be fully aware of the different colour models, how they work and how you can achieve the desired results using them. RGB is the colour model used for devices that create colours using light so for instance, you would use this model for screen work, such as websites or presentations. It is based on the three primary colours: red, green and blue and you create colours by combining different intensities of these based on inputting numbers for each between 0 & 255.
If you intend to start sending designs to printers then it’s a different colour model that you need to be using. The CMYK model (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) is what printers work from to create colours using inks, pigments, or dyes. This model is a development from the CMY model because in theory, if all CMY inks are fully present you should end up with black but what actually appears is a dark grey. This is why the K (black) is added to the CMYK model to ensure that darker colours achieve total clarity. Each colour is achieved by inserting a value between 0 and 100 to each colour and all you have to do is make sure that you access the CMYK colours on your graphics programme. In Photoshop, ensure your mode is set to CMYK.
Spot colours and pantones come into effect if you are creating, for instance, a letterhead of two colours – one being black. Then you could just use one spot colour, or pantone reference. Most companies usually define their logo by a pantone reference so that they know their entire brand never defers from the correct colour. You can achieve pantone colours by inserting the necessary percentages into the CMYK model but they may vary slightly. The best thing to do if you’re intending to do lots of design is invest in a good Pantone and CMYK (4 colour process) colour guide. This way you can look for the colour you want, enter this into the system and know that when it is printed, it will look how you want it to. The Pantone reference is universal, printer-to-printer. If you don’t use a guide you may find yourself disappointed because what you see on the screen will not be directly represented in print. Stick with specific references and you will be fine.
At the end of the day as long as you make sure you request a proof, any glaringly obvious errors can always be rectified but remember, if your document is not set up to be sent to print, you will incur the costs of the printers tweaking it.
