What is spot colour?
Spot colour is an alternative to CMYK printing. A spot colour is where a pre-mixed ink (such as a spot colour green) is used rather than a mix of yellow and blue as you would in CMYK printing. Spot colour inks can be many different colours, and also include specialist inks such as metallics, fluorescents and clear varnishes.
This is most similar to Pantone.
Why would clients wish to use a spot colour?
Spot colour printing is generally used for two reasons – cost-effectiveness and colour matching.
Colour Matching:
If there’s a specific spot printing colour that you have as part of your company branding (like B&Q Orange) you’ll want that orange colour to print the same every time, regardless of which print company produces an item for you, or which machine they use. If you specify a particular spot colour, you have a much higher chance of getting a consistent orange tone across all of your printed matter. Spot colours are often catalogued in a system, with the most popular in the USA and UK being the Pantone Matching System (more about that in a moment). If you’re not using spot colours you may find that your company orange comes out a little different on different machines (CMYK colours can vary a tad) and perhaps don’t have the vibrancy of the colour you’ve selected – not all spot colours can accurately be represented as a CMYK mix as they are too bright/vibrant.
Do we use spot colour?
No, we will only print in CMYK.
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