OUGD504 - Workshop - Design for Print

Process Colours - The colours used for print. 

Many attributions are altered in the Illustrator preferences such as adding guides. 

Document colour mode is set to CMYK for print, 

When working in colour and producing colour critical documents it is noted that 50% K (grey) is the best colour for any art board or background and tool bars. 

This is changed in Illustrator > Preferences

by deleting all unused swatches we can add our own swatches

Using the process colour percentages in much better practice than naming a colour by its appearance such as orange or pink.

By selecting all used colours once a document is completed, all the swatches of the colours can be added to the swatch list. A white triangle is present on each of the swatches which we have created, this indicates the swatch is a "Global Colour" swatch. 

Any colour which is not global will not be altered if the swatch itself is altered. When we change a colour of a global swatch every coloured shape will change to the new swatch colour. 

Spot Colour

Spot colours are used when we don't want to print with CMYK, so when wanting luminous colour, gold, etc. Process colour has properties different to spot colour as they are mixed, a spot colour however is "pre-mixed" and not made up of CMYK. If using spot colour, you will spend less money than using CMYK.

Pantone is a spot colour model used worldwide (others international models include TruMatch and FOCOLTONE). 

Spot colours are effective when producing prints on a large scale at different print shops. 

There needs to be a consistency when specifying a colour for print. Specific spot colours are used to dictate what colour the ink will be once printed in different parts of the world. If a CMYK colour was just 1% out then the colours would vary.

*(spot colour research)

Spot colour libraries are used when communicating colours to agencies, clients and printers around the world.

Colour Libraries

Adding the pantone system to the swatch library can aid the progression of artwork if you are given specific colour limitations and numbers by a client. 

Saving a swatch library

If you are working for a client repeatedly and you require the same libraries it is possible to save the swatches as Ai. Files for the future, always save to a dedicated swatch folder. It is transferable on memory sticks etc due to it's Ai. file. 

Save as an ASE file format to open a saved swatch library in another program such as InDesign or Photoshop.