You have certainly already seen at least once those swatches with all the colors, that is, the flat colors, well classified, but if you deal mostly with the digital field perhaps you have never thought they could be a working tool also for those who do graphic design. On the contrary, spot colors are one of the fundamental means of color management if you work on projects intended for print.
Pantone is the most famous company for the classification of these colors and the production of the inks with which they are printed. Surely you know the brand and its importance also at the communication level .
But this is, in fact, just one of the companies that deal with this sector. So to understand what we are talking about when we refer to spot colors and above all how they can help you in managing your projects, let’s start with the basics. Follow me!
What does “flat colors” mean?
If you have already read our articles on RGB, CMYK color modes and their distinguishing features, you will immediately notice a difference. When we refer to spot colors, in fact, we do not use an acronym and we do not refer to basic colors. In fact, these are completely different methods of obtaining color.
In English there is a name to identify the two categories: flat colors are called spot colors, while CMYK and RGB are process colors.
We have seen how when we create a color with both three-color and four-color processes we act on a limited number of basic colors (precisely two or three) and we vary the respective values, or percentages. These are therefore colours that are born from a process, as the English word says.
In particular, for the CMYK method, this process, digitally simulated, becomes real during the printing phase, when the desired shade is created by juxtaposing dots of cyan, yellow, magenta and black ink, which, when placed together in different percentages, produce the required colour.
Flat colors, on the other hand, are called “spot colors” because what goes into printing is a pre-mixed ink, identified by a code.
Both you in creating your project and the printer in transferring it onto paper, therefore, you will simply choose which is the right color for the project within the catalog proposed by the industries that produce these dyes.
Spot Colors: Additive or Subtractive Synthesis?
Since we have already explored this topic for the other color methods, I think it is important to answer this question for spot colors as well.
These colors are intended for printing, or for painting in general, so they are pigments; the pigment color, or color as matter, follows the mechanism of subtractive synthesis . Even in the case of flat colors, therefore, when the colors mix the brightness decreases .
What is the difference, then, between these colors and the CMYK method? Let’s go and see it.
Spot colors or CMYK?
Spot colors have a great advantage over colors obtained with the CMYK method. Their composition, and therefore also their brightness, is regulated and managed in industries capable of correcting the rather stringent limits of four-color printing.
For this reason, in the catalogues of flat colours we find many colours that do not exist in the CMYK gamut, even those colours which, as we have said, are very difficult to obtain in printing, such as fluorescent colours, or gold and silver effects .
An important note: if in a project we have planned some colors that can be easily obtained in CMYK and maybe one or two that we would like to create with spot colors, it is possible to combine the two methods, both within the graphics programs and during the printing phase.
It might seem like spot colors are the best choice for a print project, but the truth is that the question is a little more complicated.
Advantages and disadvantages of spot colors
Using spot colors in a project intended for print certainly has some great advantages :
- Wider color gamut : as we have already said, in the catalogs of flat colors you will find many more colors than in the CMYK gamut, you can obtain particular effects and super-bright colors.
- Faithfulness to the project : since the inks are made by a reference company always following the same composition, there is (almost) no risk that the printing yield will give you unpleasant surprises.
- Quality : These are top-quality inks that guarantee excellent performance and great uniformity of results.
In light of these undoubted advantages, however, you must consider that even flat colors have some limitations.
- Cost : this is an element that can have a double reading. In fact, if the project you are working on involves the use of a single color, then printing with spot colors could also be convenient .But if you plan to use multiple colors, consider that, at least in offset printing, different plates will have to be made , one for each color. This can cause printing costs to rise, even significantly. Not only that, spot color inks, in themselves, are quite expensive.
- Is the yield really always the same? Not as much as it might seem. Even if the most famous manufacturers of spot colors, such as Pantone, have different lines for matte or coated papers (in the Pantone system indicated as Uncoated and Coated), the yield can vary based on the type of paper and the machinery used for printing.
Major manufacturers of spot color inks
As we have already said, since spot colors are truly industrial products, the most popular ranges are created by companies that produce inks and paints.
Pantone
Needless to say, the most famous is undoubtedly Pantone. Success certainly linked to some interesting characteristics. For example, constant research means that the range of available colors expands year after year, following the main trends in contemporary design, but also in some way dictating or anticipating them.
In addition, Pantone provides many tools for those who work with colors: for example, Pantone Connect, an application developed to work in synergy with Adobe Creative Cloud tools .
The Pantone color numbering system is called PMS, which stands for Pantone Matching System, and includes both solid and process colors.
Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop include Pantone Plus Series color guides; in Illustrator, you will find 10 standard color libraries, called “color guides,” which you can use by selecting “spot” color swatches.
Other spot color manufacturers
Pantone and spot colors are NOT synonymous: Pantone is just one company, a very famous one, that produces spot colors. But there are others, mostly representative of contexts other than the United States. Let’s see them.
As far as Europe is concerned, the best known company is probably the German HKS , while for Asia we can mention DIC and Toyo Inc.
In the Creative Cloud you can find all these color libraries, in particular both in Illustrator and Indesign the libraries are available
- Pantone
- HKS
- Trumatch
- FOCOLTONE
- DEC
- TOYO