Choose Colors Wisely
At CorelWORLD, a gal came to me and asked for advice on how to make their corporate color (a vivid "teal") appear consistently across all manners of output. This included LCD projectors for powerpoint presentations.
From what I'd gathered, the real issue was them choosing a color initially that reveals limitations in output capabilities of many devices and mediums. I mean, if the same file is viewed on various projectors or monitors and looks quite different, you've got a serious problem.
The age of each device and also it's settings can wreak havoc. This has nothing to do with Draw, everything to do with the colors chosen, and the output equipment used. This includes gloss and matte paper substrates too.
It's a tough lesson, but when designing a logo, a pro designer thinks of the worst-case scenarios and keeps that in mind. That means the logo needs to be faxable, and can also be embroidered.
For me, embroidery is the key. With the FREE plugin for Draw 12 & X3, you can visualize how the logo will look on a shirt. Subtle details such as thin lines and fancy fountain fills are out the window. You can see "what works" and what doesn't. Clients get excited by seeing their logo as embroidery; you're painting a dream in their mind of nation-wide franchising of their concept.
Here's a very quick example:
Want proof that this is the right way to go? Look at the logos for the Fortune 500 companies and notice how simple most of them are in design. They are almost all based on only 1 or 2 colors. The colors chosen can be also be easily reproduced in CMYK.
From what I'd gathered, the real issue was them choosing a color initially that reveals limitations in output capabilities of many devices and mediums. I mean, if the same file is viewed on various projectors or monitors and looks quite different, you've got a serious problem.
The age of each device and also it's settings can wreak havoc. This has nothing to do with Draw, everything to do with the colors chosen, and the output equipment used. This includes gloss and matte paper substrates too.
It's a tough lesson, but when designing a logo, a pro designer thinks of the worst-case scenarios and keeps that in mind. That means the logo needs to be faxable, and can also be embroidered.
For me, embroidery is the key. With the FREE plugin for Draw 12 & X3, you can visualize how the logo will look on a shirt. Subtle details such as thin lines and fancy fountain fills are out the window. You can see "what works" and what doesn't. Clients get excited by seeing their logo as embroidery; you're painting a dream in their mind of nation-wide franchising of their concept.
Here's a very quick example:
Want proof that this is the right way to go? Look at the logos for the Fortune 500 companies and notice how simple most of them are in design. They are almost all based on only 1 or 2 colors. The colors chosen can be also be easily reproduced in CMYK.
posted by Jeff Harrison at
6:53 PM
5 Comments:
Interesting that you brought this subject up today, since I have been working on a coat of arms for a freemasonry lodge lately and I have been struggling a bit with the colors. Eventually I realized that I must go from the smaller color space (CMYK) to the larger (RGB) not the reverse. I had a scanning of a flag as the original (the real original was probably painted long time ago) and I first used the color picker, but that also lead to dull results when printed. I therefore converted the photo with a fairly standard CMYK ICC profile and picked the colors from there and then adjusted them to my liking. Now it's easy to convert the logo to RGB if necessary.
Selecting colors for print is not my forte and I guess there are some trade secrets about what colors (CMYK) look good and what colors don't. I think I will purchase a swatch book to be able to see this. Do you have any recommended reading on the subject otherwise? And what about PMS colors, when do they come into play and would you rather design a logo starting from PMS colors and converting to CMYK from there, than the other way around?
Hi Lars, Thank-you so much for your comment. Many other artists have this question too.
Designing on-screen in vivid RGB colors (or also with vivid PMS colors) can often give an artist a heart attack when they see the CMYK equivalent.
I have an article on all of this coming up, but the short answer for now is that if you design in CMYK from the beginning, you're in a "safety zone".
You lose some vibrancy of other coloring methods, but increase the likelihood of the artwork appearing as expected.
There is no major secret to working in CMYK... but there are ways to optimize the output by envisioning what's happening on the printing plates while designing.
You could print a CMYK swatch book at your local print shop on a digital machine for quite cheap. Then you have a physical example of those colors.
I always design in CMYK first, since that output method is so frequently used in communication.
Depending on the customer, you could design around an even MORE limited palette - such as a range of thread colors, or cut vinyl which may only have 6-8 shades of green (solid vinyl).
That way, you are not caught later on when the client wants a 20' wide sign in front of their store, and the green you already printed on their 10,000 business cards has no vinyl equivalent.
There are still some benefits to PMS, but printing is changing to CMYK for almost everything these days.
My wonderings about this subject really stem from the fact that If I have both the standard RGB and CMYK palettes open and I turn CM off, they look exactly the same, then with CM turned on, the CMYK palette is mure subdued than the RGB one, thus making it harder to find colors especially among the darker shades that really come to look very much the same, especially among the (cmyk) blues and greens. I don't know why this is, because I figure the CMYK colors are mapped into RGB space, so C100 is equal to G255B255, so they should, but they don't, print the same. Anyway, I'd rather use a palette that looks like the RGB one in CM mode, than the extra dull CMYK one. To me it seems like the CMYK palette is too darn dull, when CM is applied even though it varies quite a lot with the ICC profile in action. But anyway, can you tell me why C100 doesn't print like G255B255? They are the same colors uncalibrated (w/o CM on) and should be the same in a calibrated state. Shouldn't they?
Hi Lars,
I see what you mean, the RGB palette is more vivid with CM on, and converts to CMYK differently. I'm going to copy your post to the group to see what others have to say about this.
I've found this oversized (12" square) process color guide to be an extremely helpful tool: "PROCESS COLOR MANUAL: 24,000 CMYK Combinations for Design, Prepress, and Printing", ISBN: 0-8118-2757-7
The book shows CMYK values for 2-, 3- and 4-color CMYK combinations, organized in a very logical and user friendly way. Its only limitation is that colors are shown only on coated stock; but value and convenience more than offset that limitation. I checked, and the book is still in print and available from Amazon.com.
A second, oversized and excellent CMYK guide is Agfa's out-of-print "Postscript Process Color Guide". It does show both coated and uncoated stock; however, it's almost impossible to find.
With kind regards to all,
JOE STAMLER
Visual Transformations
Fairfield, CT
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