Something that’s becoming more common for us is picking up the pieces from digital agencies creating branding for clients who aren’t thinking enough about the restrictions you have when it comes to printing those brands. 

As an example, we recently had a new client who’d had their branding done a few years before by a very respected digital-first agency. Unfortunately all the beautful colours they chose were simply not reproducable in print using the common CMYK process (more on that below).

Why this is so important is the bright and punchy colours that looked so good on screen could not be printed or even reproduced cost effectively on their livery and more. In turn, this means their branding becomes inconsistent across differing mediums. And consistency is marketing 101.

We believe this simply comes down to a lack of experience in branding from some of these digital-first agencies. They’ve not come across the limitations, so they just don’t consider them. But that’s hardly a professional position. 

The CMYK Process

So, why are some colours not reproducable when it come to print? Before we get to that, let’s quickly look at how colour works when printing with the CMYK process.

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, these four different inks are then used to print your artwork. They’re also used by most desktop colour printers.

These four colours enable you to make up the standard colour spectrum or ‘gamut’ available to printers, similar to the way your computer monitor or TV makes up the colour on your screen using the RGB (Red Green and Blue) pixel mix to make all the colours you see.

So why don’t those RGB colours match the CMYK colours? To a large degree, they do. But some colours that are created using the RGB colour gamut (like your monitor) can be far brighter and more saturated than those available to the CMYK process.

You may imagine that the same colour range should be simple to produced, but these two-colour spectrums can look very different when viewed on a computer screen compared to when you are checking your print work. 

To help, the diagram below shows the differences in the range of colours available in the visible RGB & CMYK spectrums. As you can see in the diagram on this page, there are far fewer colours available for reproduction by the CMYK printing process. 

How Can I Match The Colours I See On Screen?

Chose the colours for your branding wisely but taking into account how the brand will be used. And in the real world, things still get printed, so that’s the colour range you need to work within. 

This is where we’re finding so many digital agencies falling down, just not thinking about the limits of print and choosing colours outside the CMYK colour range. A fundemental mistake for a brand. So be careful and ask the question, “Can this be reproduced in print?”

Colour Me Surprised

We find it quite surprising that there are such large and successful digital agencies are getting this so wrong. And it can be an expensive mistake to fix too. Maybe it’s just the lack of exposure to non-digital mediums that causes this. Whatever the reason, it’s something that needs to be learned by every marketing professional so you don’t fall into this same trap in the future with your brand redesign.

Jeff

Caffeine Creative are an experienced team based in the Cardiff area. We help with graphic design, web development, company values, social media, branding, video production, drone shoots, and more. To know more please contact us.