I’m disappointed, frustrated. A few weeks ago, I ordered two large format prints (100 cm wide) of images from my photobook on the lockdown in Antwerp. Both had – of course – a large number of vibrant deep blues, plus a touch of red. When I received the prints, the…
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In a previous post, I already covered the fact that not all black is designed equal. ‘Black’ can be composed in different ways when going to print. And this is becoming very relevant when designing food packaging. A brand of breakfast cereals I recently discovered shows you why. In a…
It has been an interesting week. Tuesday my newspaper had an article on the (in)famous Yves Klein Blue. But the printed color was purple… Later this week, I noticed some images with better conversions, but with others, it was the same issue again. When it comes to converting blue from…
At the end of the year, I receive lots of letters. From charities to be precise. And the one that stands out – from a color perspective – is the one from the Red Cross. Next to the envelope and letter, there is also a leaflet and a small agenda…
In case you wondered: I’m not the only one with a special interest for brand colors in real life. Recently I came across two research papers by Michael Abildgaard Pedersen from the Danish School of Media and Journalism, examining both brand colors / brand guides (300+ / 156) and print…
In my previous article, I discussed the tolerances that the tools used in print quality control have. At least: in theory. To check this in practice, I launched a survey: ‘Your color guide and You’. The goal was to get an idea of how people use color guides in daily…
Color is probably the main quality criterium when dealing with print. And lower deviations are better, leading to some people demanding, defending a delta E 2000 of 2 for brand colors. But this raises a few questions, among which what the reference is and how reliable that reference is. And…
Would you like to be part of an interesting, crowdsourced color research? Then I have a few questions for you. I would like to get a better understanding of the use of Pantone guides. With a dominant position, you can’t neglect these guides. But usage can differ: some only use…
The previous article about color memory started some discussion on LinkedIn, with a number of people strongly defending very tight tolerances. Packages should always look exactly the same, also with reorders, with e-commerce in mind. Let’s put it to test and do a few real-life checks of the visual appearance…
A few months ago, I published an article about color memory, including a short test. The test was to check whether you could remember an iconic color, Coca-Cola red, correctly. Although the number of respondents is still limited, my statement seems to be confirmed: you can’t correctly remember an iconic…
With a color printer close to every desktop, the question arises: “Why should we spend all that money on preprinted letterheads if we can print the logo together with the rest of the letter?” Although this looks a valid proposition, not all logos are created equal and with some ‘unique’…
It’s annoying, really annoying. Especially when you are on the receiving side. And it’s definitely reflecting on the brand image of the sender: errors in mailing lists. And I know: I see them on a regular basis. Two mailing pieces at the same moment, wrong use of capitals, wrong language,…
Iconic brands come with an iconic brand color. A color we will never forget. Well, that’s the intention of the designer, of the company. But how good is your color memory? Can you accurately recall that iconic brand color? Let’s do a short test to find out… CONTENTS: Short-term memory…
Your logo, your brand colors are important to you, especially when you’re a designer or a marketer. You care about how it is being reproduced, whether it is on a website, on a printed piece of paper, or any other kind of reproduction. And you should take all those kinds…
Designers know black. Especially when it comes to fashion. When looking at print, it might be a bit more complicated and sometimes strange things can happen to black, unintentionally. Last week I got two different mail pieces that contained a ‘weird’ black. Let’s take a closer look at black and…