Color and reproduction of colors isn’t an easy subject. But often experts make it more complex than needed. In these articles about color basics, I’ll explain basic concepts in a way that most, if not all, people should be able to understand it.
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 […]
For as long as I can remember, the primary unambiguous, device-independent way to describe, define colors is in Lab (CIELAB, L*a*b*). But even after so many decades, I still struggle to ‘feel’ the a- and […]
You may have seen some posts on LinkedIn about the latest Pantone guides, about issues with those guides. Many people shared pictures of differences between old and new guides, we discovered homeopathic-level ink formulations (which […]
The recent Color 22 conference had an interesting speaker: dr. Terry Wu, about neuromarketing. My LinkedIn feed was full of it! And neuromarketing is an exciting topic. E.g. emotions can influence our perceptions. Knowing you […]
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 […]
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 […]
You may have read my previous article, on XCMYK and the business case: my ‘corona photobook’. Since the publication of that article, a lot has happened. And it’s an interesting story, and sometimes a sad […]
XCMYK is a rather simple method to produce an ‘expanded’ gamut with your standard printing inks on your standard, four-color printing press. You only need FM-screening, or another non-traditional screening, and a higher ink density. Although it seems an exciting technology, I recently found that it’s tough to find a printer using it. Which is a shame: there is definitely a business case for this. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Over the last few decades, print has seen a significant increase in quality. Just go to your bookshelf and take a look at an old book with color pictures to see it with your own […]
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 […]
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 […]
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