We get asked a lot about colour. You see, red isn’t just red, there are about a gazillion different types of red! – Different processes and substrates call for various production methods so here are a few pointers to help shed a little light on some of them!
Colour accuracy is crucial in your branding depending on where your brand appears will determine the colour gamut used to match your brand colours.
🔴 Colour gamut – a range of colours within the colour spectrum or colour space, that can be reproduced on screen or in print.
🔵 RGB – is the colour gamut your screen displays in and it stands for Red Green Blue as all colours are made from blends of those three colours.
🟢 CMYK – stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black and is the most common colour gamut for print. It is much smaller than RGB so some colours can appear dull when compared to colours on screen.
TIP – if your brand utilises printed materials it’s best to work in CMYK profiles to ensure colour continuity between screen and print.
🟡 Pantone – Pantone Matching System (PMS) is a standardised colour matching system that allows you to achieve print colours that cannot be created using CMYK printing.
🟣 RAL – RAL Colour Matching System is used to define colours for paint, coatings and plastics. It has 3 systems within it. The most common (Classic) comprises 420 standard colours and 70 metallics. RAL Design and RAL Effect offer more variation, with 2831 colours across the range.
🟠Don’t forget – If your business has multiple touchpoints like a website, external signage, printed leaflets/brochures, stationery etc, consider picking the smallest colour gamut and build from there. This will ensure the closest colour match in all areas of your business.
