Colour

Colours are by their very nature ‘subjective’, we all see slightly different versions, some of us – those with ‘colour blindness’ – may see some wildly different colours to the rest of us.

Colour on screen is different to colour on paper – screens emit light, they shine, colours are brighter – paper reflects light, it has texture, colours are subtler.

Colours on screen are made of Red, Green & Blue light, this is sometimes referred to as the RGB colour space, they can be referred to by using RGB values, or HSB (Hue Saturation Brightness), or LAB (Lightness, Red/Green Blue/Yellow), or even, for the web, hexadecimal, hex colours (#000000, #ffffff etc)

Colours for print can be thought of as mixed paints, they can be made with ‘4 colour’, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK (CMYK), or can be Spot Colour, a pre-mixed colour ink, which may be made of different percentages of other colours.

Gamut, refers to the subset of all colours within a particular ‘colourspace’, some spaces overlap and share colours – some colours are only available within an individual colourspace.

One colourspace, used for print world wide, is the PANTONE® colour matching system, we use this to ensure that the colour you are talking about, is the same as the colour we produce for you.

Below are on-screen approximations of a range of colours from the PANTONE® colour matching system.
(Other colours and other colour matching systems are available!)

They are only to be used as a guide and do not give an 100% accurate representation of ink on paper.
It is always best to refer to a swatch book, or printed sample.

PANTONE® is the property of Pantone, Inc.