Pantone colour vs CMYK ? Understanding Colours Better
In printing industry colour is the real game-changer. A simple design can overshadow a creative masterpiece if the colours used in it are vibrant & appealing. In fact, designers devote their most of the time to decide about the perfect colour that instantly enhances the look & feel of a creative. It draws more significance when it comes to brand logo as no brand can afford their logo being displayed in different colours every time. And then, PMS that is Pantone Matching System comes to rescue.
CMYK & PMS: The Difference
Printing industry primarily revolves around two colour system styles: CMYK & PMS.
CMYK colour style is often used in Offset printing with four base colours including Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and black. One can produce a wide array of colours by varying the quantities of these four primary colours.
On the other hand, PMS or Pantone Matching System has 14 basic colour palette. The colours used in this system are referred as Pantone colours and they appear more accurate on printing. That’s the reason designers/printers prefer pantone colours over CMYK for printing brand logos, stationary & other collateral that are supposed to be colour consistent all across.
Pantone Colours
A Pantone colour is a specific numbered color in the Pantone Matching System used in the graphic arts, printing and other industries to facilitate accurate and consistent color reproduction. For instance, Pantone 165 C, Pantone 101 C etc. One can choose a pantone colour that best suits the design from the pantone swatch book.
THE PMS BENEFITS
Standard Language of Colours
Also referred as spot colour, the pantone colours offer a more standard language to the colour system. As these colour are premixed and carry a particular name for every colour-shade, it becomes easier to maintain the same colour across different printers.
Let’s demystify this with an example. If someone needs to print red 152C, he can directly pick the same colour from pantone colour swatch rather than wasting hours on matching CMYK.
Provides great colour consistency to designs
Maintaining the same colour consistency every time is the biggest challenge that a print company/designer faces. With the CMYK colour style, that is both inexpensive and efficient, making it great for printing brochures, catalogs, or anything else with lots of images, it is still a difficult job to be colour-accurate for the designer. And here, the PMS is something one can swear by for colour accuracy. It ensures colour consistency & therefore preferred for all corporate identity jobs.
Hope, the above information will help you to understand the colour better & choose a colour style that not only provides you with quality designs but fits with your budget as well!
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Offset or Digital: We have made ‘choosing’ easier for you!
With technological advancements in printing industry, we have got a variety to choose from but choosing the right printing method for a job demands some knowledge of the printing techniques. Marketers often get confused between Offset & Digital printing as both are in vogue. Many a times, it is just a matter of choice and on a few occasions, selecting the right one can create a remarkable difference.
Offset & Digital printing come with their own set of advantages & disadvantages. Based on the job requirements, a marketer decides which one to go with. Let’s hop for those benefits that one offers over another.
Quicker turnaround time
Conventional offset printing takes more printing time than the modern digital printing. It is because of the lengthy printing process involved. In offset, the desired print image is burned onto a plate and is then transferred/offset from the plate to a rubber blanket, and then to the printing surface. In contrary, digital printing involves less mechanical steps eliminating the making films and color proofs, manually stripping the pieces together and making plates, thereby offering a quicker turnaround time.
Conclusion: If you want to get a job done earlier or are time-bound for a particular task, choose digital printing.
Specialised printing on a range of surfaces
Anything that is unique from the clutter attracts attention. In an attempt to attract the potential buyers, marketers often choose specialised printing on a range of surfaces including paper, wood, cloth, metal, leather, paper, plastic and many more. Both, digital as well as offset offer specialised printing but offset provides more flexibility.
Conclusion: If you seek more flexibility, Offset is for you but if you are looking for more surface options,from offset & digital go by digital.
Quantity is a deciding factor
By saying quantity as a deciding factor, we are trying to make it clear that printing costs vary with the quantity of printed materials. For instance, offset printing costs more when the number is less while it turns cost-effective when printing has to be done in larger quantities.
In contrary, the unit-cost goes lower with digital when lower quantities are involved.
Conclusion: Decide by the numbers. If you have to print in larger quantities, choose offset printing & vice-versa.
Colour is Important
Offset printing uses CMYK that is four-colour process. It is expensive but offers great colour on printed materials. However, if you want two-colour print, it becomes more cost-effective. Coming to digital printing, it undoubtedly offers less up-front costs but may or may not provide that accurate colour.
Conclusion: If your priority is getting the right colour, go with offset but if you’re seeking cost-effective printing,from offset & digital choose digital printing.
Customisation matters
Customised printing is in vogue. Marketers know, when the buyers are given a sense of belonging, they’ll tend to buy that particular product. And digital printing offers the benefit of variable data printing where every piece has a unique name, address, code etc. thereby giving a customized touch every time while offset printing lacks the same.
Conclusion: If you swear by customised products & want to make your buyers feel special, from offset & digital choose Digital printing.
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Want Printing Better? Pay Attention to the Colour!
Technological advancements has brought a lot of changes and printing industry is no exception. Earlier, printing was done using wooden typesets and was quiet a tiresome & complicated process, but the advent of latest technology has made it easier like never before. 3D printing, UV printers & many other techniques have completely changed the way this industry once worked. However, getting the right colour on a print material is still a task that demands painstaking attention and a deeper understanding of different colour patterns.
Colour plays a pivotal role in establishing a brand. What attracts a customer first is the colour of a particular product. It is the colour through which people often identify a brand & therefore much efforts & attention is given to select colours that truly reflect the brand’s personality.
Have you ever noticed that the colours look different when printed than they appear on the screen of your desktop at the time of designing! Actually, there are many factors that affect the appearance of a colour on a particular material. Digital designing involves RGB colour pattern while printing involves CMYK that is less vibrant than RGB. Keeping the colour consistent, thus, becomes a challenging task.
In order to keep the colour consistent, it is always advised that companies should include information about usage of colours in their brand guideline documents or brand manuals. This helps the designers as well as the print companies to maintain colour consistency in printed materials.
Testing & colour matching is also an effective way to maintain colour consistency. It offers an opportunity to get the colours on print materials that are closest to their digital appearance. As we know digital RGB is much more vibrant than print CMYK, testing & proof reduce the chances of colour difference between the two styles. One more way to maintain colour accuracy is the use of Pantone swatch that provides designers with a lot of colour options equivalent to its RGB colour style.
Though there are many ways to minimise the colour-error but there’s no accurate technique to get the colour 100% right everytime. It is the experience & deep understanding of the designer that ensurses colour consistency across digital & print platforms.
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