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.