Best Practices Archives - insights4print.ceo

Stop asking for 300 PPI (or DPI) images!
Here’s what matters, and why.
Plus: two simple, free calculators!

01/05/2025

Recently, there was yet another discussion about DPI (dots per inch) vs PPI (pixels per inch) on LinkedIn. Which triggered David Van Driessche, who has been involved in the Ghent Workgroup in various positions since […]

Best Practices

Monitors: is sRGB still standard?

26/05/2024

Last year, I got a new monitor at work, a 4K monitor, nice! My regular job (the one that pays the bills) is not in the printing industry, so ‘color’ is not at the top […]

Move over PDF/X-1a
Stop using a 20-year-old standard!

26/05/2024

It was a surprise when I read the recent message from the GWG: ‘Stop using a 20-year-old standard’! My first reaction was: what??? The GWG promotes standards! But then I noticed the ‘20’, and it […]

Best Practices

Sharing your brand color guide publicly:
worst or best practice?

21/12/2023

Brands are proud of their brand logo and their brand colors. They spend a lot of time and money to get that perfect logo. And a lot of time is spent on creating a brand […]

Best Practices

A crucial new job profile:
The CxC (Color eXchange Coordinator)

10/01/2025

Initially, I had planned to write an article about two issues I spotted in Black Friday publicity folders I received last week. Two issues that could have easily been prevented with a little bit […]

Best Practices

How long should a visual press check take?
(a few seconds vs. as long as it takes)

14/11/2023

Earlier this year, I published an article with studies showing how long consumers interact with a package while shopping. On average, the ‘Total Fixation Duration’ was less than a second. Coca-Cola cans? One-tenth of a […]

Best Practices

Project BBCG: a Better Brand Color Guide

16/04/2023

Brand color guides are flawed, ambiguous, and incomplete; studies have shown that. But what are we going to do about that? Well, here is the answer: Project BBCG, a Better Brand Color Guide. With the […]

Best Practices

Color communication: two decent Pantone alternatives (Swatchos, SMS)

27/02/2025

Printing in color, when looking at commercial printing, is these days highly standardized in CMYK, worldwide. And even packaging and labels are moving towards a fixed color set. However, there was a time when printing […]

Best Practices

The Adobe–Pantone breakup: how brand owners, designers should deal with it

15/11/2022

Designers, brand owners, and the like have heavily relied on the Pantone libraries in Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. But the romance is over. Later this year, these libraries will no longer be included in […]

Best Practices

How to pick and define that valuable brand color: a fundamental issue

06/07/2023

The company logo, the brand colors, it’s an important choice for every company. Global companies spend massive amounts of money on picking the ‘right’ color. However, there is a rather fundamental issue with choosing a […]

Fine art photo prints: “sRGB offers the highest quality” – No, not really…

23/08/2020

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 […]

Designing black for food packaging (not all black is designed equal…)

23/08/2020

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 […]

Where ICC color management can (still) go wrong: the blue to purple conversion

26/04/2020

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 […]

Best Practices

Brand colors IRL: the Red Cross case

27/07/2019

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. […]

Best Practices

Brand colors IRL: creating better brand guides, as research shows most are flawed

03/11/2022

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 […]

Best Practices

Stop asking for 300 PPI (or DPI) images!
Here’s what matters, and why.
Plus: two simple, free calculators!

Monitors: is sRGB still standard?

Move over PDF/X-1a
Stop using a 20-year-old standard!

Sharing your brand color guide publicly:
worst or best practice?

A crucial new job profile:
The CxC (Color eXchange Coordinator)

How long should a visual press check take?
(a few seconds vs. as long as it takes)

Project BBCG: a Better Brand Color Guide

Color communication: two decent Pantone alternatives (Swatchos, SMS)

The Adobe–Pantone breakup: how brand owners, designers should deal with it

How to pick and define that valuable brand color: a fundamental issue

Fine art photo prints: “sRGB offers the highest quality” – No, not really…

Designing black for food packaging (not all black is designed equal…)

Where ICC color management can (still) go wrong: the blue to purple conversion

Brand colors IRL: the Red Cross case

Brand colors IRL: creating better brand guides, as research shows most are flawed

Tolerances in brand color reproduction:
one size – fits all?
Why printing needs expectation management

Landa Digital Printing: The flight of Icarus

XCMYK vs CMYK: here’s your business case