There are over 1100 distinct colours in the Pantone system, which can be used independently or in combination with another Pantone colour or any CMYK combination.

How Pantone works

The Pantone system was developed in relation to a real commercial need for a full spectrum capable colour mix system. The original Pantone system was created in the pre digital days, when the need for complex colours, particularly compound colours, was putting a strain on the printing capacities of the times.

As anyone who’s ever needed to get a print job done knows, colours are always an issue, and so is colour quality. The Pantone approach, which is a holistic grading of colours and tones, was the logical answer, and became extremely popular.

When digital printing began, Pantone was perfectly placed to meet the needs of the new printing technology. It provided a series of known colour values, which was a blessing for printers and clients alike. The standardization of colour mixes is a fundamental need in digital printing, where print colours simply can’t be mixed by rule of thumb because of the constraints of printing capabilities. The colour mix must translate into a working digital formula for printing.

The Pantone approach allows for calculated mixes of ratios to get accurate colour reproduction. It’s a particularly practical approach to the demands of commercial colour schemes, where professional design is becoming the benchmark standard for print work. However exotic the colour scheme, Pantone is always able to make the right mix of colours.

Pantone colours allow people to create company and personal identities through colour.

The extremely high demand for technical and print quality in reproduction has been no real problem for the Pantone system. Professional printing services have been quick to opt for an all-purpose full spectrum printing capability.

The range of print jobs is a good indicator of Pantone’s high range of abilities:

• Reports
• Advertising Materials
• Poster Printing
• Business Card Printing
• Brochure Printing
• Letterheads
• Calendars
• Booklets
• Vouchers
• Bookmarks
• Greeting cards

As you can see, this is practically anything, in any format, any type of paper cut or size. The huge advantage in Pantone’s range is its ability to adapt directly to client requirements. The days of a choice of a few colours are well and truly gone. The very high quality prints you see now are a reflection of the market demand.

Pantone really is the professional printer’s choice. If you’re looking for a complete visual business identity, you’ve got it. The corporate logo can be reproduced to the pixel, exactly as you want it. The personalized stationery will be perfect. Compare Pantone with anything, you’ll see why the industry has voted with its business to use Pantone.

How the Pantone Colour System Works is a post from: Australian Trade Printing Articles

Size – flat, folded and page numbers?

If you’re working with a particular format, you need to equate your presentation with the product type and the look you want. Think about the presentation as a
whole product. Your software will give you the basic specifications direct off the files.

Quantity – quite simply, how many?

Print runs work on a volume basis. More will be cheaper per unit, but how many do you need? What sort of circulation will the print copy have? Do you need file copies? Is there a mailing list to consider?

Colour – spot colour or CMYK? Both sides coloured or just one?

Colour specifications are worth spending some time on with your printer. The spot colour is a general purpose colour scheme. CMYK colours are a digital mix of colours with preset values. Either may be appropriate, but you need to consider the options available on merit. This can be an issue in business card printing and brochure printing where colour is a major design element.

Paper – weight, brand and colour?

Paper quality directly affects print quality. Low grade paper and high quality printing simply don’t work. The paper must be able to proved print quality. Paper is basically measured as gsm, (grams per square metre), fine, photo paper, etc. If you have a requirement for high quality print, go with the best quality. Brands of paper and colour should also be factored in as quote elements when making your inquiry with the printer.

Binding – perfect, staple, sewn?

Binding quality has a lot to do with the look of your print. Some binds are ultra-durable, like sewn binding. “Perfect” binding is the common adhesive binding. Look at your options, particularly in terms of the size of the print document.

For commercial documents, it’s also advisable to check with the printer about relative strengths of binding. You particularly need to ensure a strong bind which is appropriate for larger documents like reports or documents over 5cm in depth.

Any special cuts or folds to be included?

Commercial and other types of print job often include folds, cuts, or other forms of presentation. This is an area where you’re strongly advised to consult your printer to ensure these complex structures are properly done. These elements are itemized on the printing quotes, so you’ll have your costs factored in up front.

Proofs – what is the proofing method?

Print proofing is an important quality control on the print specifications. The proofing process is designed to ensure accurate resolution of print materials on the finished product. The printer will also provide information which explains the print proofing method, as well as the required formats for documents.

7 Essential Pieces of Information for Getting Accurate Printing Quotes is a post from: Australian Trade Printing Articles

If you’ve had your logo professionally designed, your contractor may have used Pantone colours for the logo. These are very specific color combinations, and are sometimes known as spot colours. Some people feel that they add to the uniqueness of a logo or design … but every single company having printing done knows that they add to the cost of a trade printing job! Simply convert your spot colours to process for an instant cost reduction and a difference so miniscule, I defy anyone to pick it.

- Use two colour printing for part of a job

If you have a large document like a booklet, can you use two-colour printing for part of it? Two-colour printing (for example, black and red on white paper) is much cheaper than four-colour or full colour printing. It may be possible for you to have a single contrast colour for headings and breakout boxes and black text, without detracting from the professionalism of the piece at all.

- Stock choice

Again, this is an area where larger trade printing jobs such as books, booklets and manuals can really save. Don’t use the same stock throughout – but create the same impression of quality in your reader’s mind by using high-weight coated stock for covers, and much lighter, uncoated stock for inner pages. The savings here are proportional to the number of pages in your print job.

- Type size

Unless your audience is invariably visually impaired or elderly, it is usually acceptable to take the type size for your brochure printing or booklet printing down to 10pt or so. If doing this means that you can save on the number of pages that you need printed, you could make substantial savings overall.

- Shop around, look for extras

There are plenty of printing services online … plenty of well-priced ones too! Ask for sample prints from the well-priced services, to assure yourself of the quality of their output. Look for extras that come with the service, like free delivery, free proofs etc. Anything you get for free is essentially a saving – revel in it!

5 Tricks for Minimizing Your Printing Cost While Maintaining Quality is a post from: Australian Trade Printing Articles

• A3 size is A4 doubled widthways
• A2 size is A3 doubled widthways
• A5 size is A4 folded in half widthways
• A6 size is A5 folded in half widthways
• DL size is A4 folded into three widthways

Paper types

• Coated paper: Has a thin coating of china clay to make it glossy
• Uncoated paper: Has a rougher matte feel
• Matte, Silk and Gloss: These are levels of coating, smoothness or shininess in order from roughest to least rough.
• Carbonless paper: If you are getting letterhead printing or invoice book printing, you may want to get it on carbonless paper to make copies of handwritten documents easily.

The designing process

• Bleed: To put a bleed on a document means to let pictures and coloured boxes that will run right up to the edge of the document after printing, actually go over the edge. If you have graphics up to the edge, but don’t put a bleed on, you may end up with a thin white line along the edge of some printouts.
• CMYK: Stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Most printers need your images to be in CMYK format to print. CMYK is a color space – it tells the machine how much of each color to mix to create the images in your layout.
• DPI – Dots per inch: The number of dots per inch determines how large a photo can be blown up without losing detail. Should be at least 150 for most printing services.
• EPS: Preferred file type for images that need to be enlarged significantly
• Grayscale: To ordinary people, black and white … although we know that ‘black and white’ photos aren’t really only black and white.
• Gutter: If you are having book printing done, this is the area between the text and the bound edge
• Pixel: Stands for picture element – a single dot of the many different coloured dots created by a digital camera or scanner to make up an electronic image.
• PMS: Stands for the Pantone Matching System, or a set of’ trademarked’ colours
• RGB: Another color space, usually used on screen. Stands for red, green and blue. Many printing services can’t use images in RGB color space.
• Spot colours: ‘Trademarked’ colours, very specific colors blends. They make printing more expensive.

Printing process

• Die cut: To us a die to cut paper into shapes other than the size it comes in.
• Embossing: To press an image into paper so that part of it lies above the usual surface
• Ghosting: When a faint printed image appears where it isn’t supposed to
• Imposition: When you arrange the pages for a printer, two or more per sheet of paper, so that when they ar cut and folded they appear as they are supposed to, in order.
• Imprint: To print new info onto something that was printed already, such as putting a new employee’s name on a previously printed business card
• Page proof: A single printout of a job, usually for purposes of checking that everything is correct

General terms

• Body: The main part of a textual area, not including headlines
• Laminate: A thin plastic sheet or coating applied to paper for protection from water and dirt.
• Mockup: To create a suggested design or dummy print

Glossary of Specialist Printing Terms is a post from: Australian Trade Printing Articles

Yes, this does give the printing service the opportunity to change things around. However, there’s no reason to be concerned over this capability – they have no interest in changing your work! However, providing the native application file (like an Indesign package or CorelDraw file) does allow the printer to export it using their preferred settings, without back-and-forthing too much.

- Include fonts with native application files

Many people don’t know that unless a font is installed on a computer, it won’t display within a document. You’ll need to email your font files (located in Control Panel> Fonts in Windows) along with your pdf or your native application file.

- Include linked images with native application files

It is also easy to forget that although a picture displays properly in InDesign or Illustrator, that display is only good because it references a place on your hard drive. You’ll need to include any additional images that are linked to your application file as well, for the printing service – otherwise the picture will come out horribly pixelated!

- Include written instructions detailing file names, etc

It is always good practice not to assume that your trade printer knows which files are supposed to go where. Send a list (either in hard copy or via email) detailing how many copies you need of each document, including the file name, and the stock you were expecting to be used. Include your contact numbers in case there are any problems with the files, or clarification is needed.

- Confirm arrival by email

Ask your printing service to drop you a quick line to let you know they’ve received the files. If you don’t have this confirmation by a particular time, give them a ring to make sure your files haven’t been lost in the ether!

- Use Senduit or other file sharing site for large files

Email client timeouts often mean that it isn’t possible for printing services to receive large files (above 10 megs) via email. A great alternative are file sharing services such as Senduit, where you upload the file to a web server, and your printer downloads it.

- Compress your file if possible with Zip or Stuffit

You can make the entire sending process much easier by compressing the file with a program like Zip for Windows, or StuffIt for Mac.

- Do your own printout before sending

Do your own printout before you send the file to the printer. It is a quirk of the human eye that we often simply don’t see mistakes on the screen which are glaringly obvious on the printed page. If you don’t want to be making last minute frantic phone calls to the printer asking them to pull the plates because you’ve discovered you misspelt a word … print first!

8 Tips You Didn’t Know for Sending Your Design to the Printer is a post from: Australian Trade Printing Articles

This is the golden rule of professional logo design for corporate clients. However, it also holds true if you are designing your own company logo. Get others within the company to tell you what they think of it. If you have the opportunity, your customers are another good population to obtain feedback from. Ask people who are likely to be honest about how the logo looks in the context of your brochure printing, etc – empty praise is not so useful!

2.    Don’t use raster images

Raster images are acceptable for websites and flyers, but not for logos. Vector graphics (in the form of an eps or Illustrator file) should always be used to make the logo scalable to any size, from billboard creation to business card printing.

3.    Don’t use stock photos or illustrations

A logo must be unique – as individual as the business it represents. There is nothing unique about using a stock illustration.

4.    Don’t use fine lines or detailed images

Fine lines and detailed images will get lost in some printing jobs (like very small business card printing), and will not stay in the customers’ and prospects’ memories as well as simple designs will. Images should be stylised and incredibly simple.

5.    Don’t create logos that only look good in colour

Many publications will only print in black and white – for others, the cost of colour advertisements or printing is incredibly high. A logo that comes in shades of colour, but is indistinguishable in grayscale may look good on some jobs you send to a printing service, but be useless on others. Most graphics editing programs have an option to remove colour and view in grayscale – do this periodically.

6.    Don’t use Microsoft standard fonts

Everybody recognized Times New Roman, Arial, Comic Sans, Lucida Handwriting, Book Antiqua and Century Gothic. This goes back to the point about uniqueness – your logo does nothing to identify your business as different from others if you have a Microsoft-font logo on your business card printing and brochure printing.

7.    Don’t use more than two fonts

As well as being unique, the logo should create a clear impression. Using more than two fonts might make a business look different to the rest … but that is because of its resemblance to a train wreck. Using different forms of the same font is fine – bold and roman, roman and italic, bold and condensed, etc – but you would generally stick within the same font family. If one font is fancy, make the other clear and plain.

8.    Don’t copy designs

Again, you want something unique – copied logos are the ultimate in commonality. This type of plagiarism mightn’t be as easy to track, but it can still have consequences. In the meantime, having business card printing and brochure printing that looks the same as someone else’s serves little purpose.

What Not to Do – Company Logo Design is a post from: Australian Trade Printing Articles

1.    Abstract images (inspire emotion)

Usually, your product or service itself will not inspire great emotion in people looking at your logo on business card printing. For an engine machinist, for example, a car engine is a fairly bland image, compared to the remembered feeling of speeding along a narrow road! Use the feeling of speed in your logo … not an image of the engine that gets a person there. This creates an immediate engagement with your brochure printing and flyer printing for customers.

2.    Sketching the logo first

If you are a designer, you probably remember well all the hours you’ve spent fiddling with the anchor points along a line, trying to get them to convey just the impression you want. It is infinitely easier to sketch out a logo idea, and then transfer that to the computer screen. We have evolved to use our hands, not a mouse button! Besides, this leads up to our next point …

3.    Start with black and white first

For some products, you’ll be able to cut down your trade printing costs enormously by using single-colour or two-colour printing. Sketching out your logo with nothing more than a grey lead pencil ensures that colour doesn’t interfere with the basic concept of the design, which should be clear no matter whether the logo appears in your business card printing in full colour or black and white.

4.    Keep it simple

If you can clearly see what a logo represents when it is downsized to around an inch square, it is simple enough to be effective. This point is both a practical one, to aid in the quality of products that are sent to your trade printer, and also a marketing-oriented one. Simple logos are easier to remember. You can bring Google’s logo to mind immediately – because there really isn’t that much to remember!

5.    Always do a design brief – even for yourself

Professional logo designers will always do a design brief. Even if you are designing your own logo, you should create a design brief, to help crystallize your thoughts about the logo and provide a frame of reference during the design process. You should set down ideas like

• Your company’s branding
• What you want to convey with the logo
• Your target market
• Your point of difference/unique selling point
• Sizing
• What printed materials it will be used on – business card printing, flyer printing etc

6.    Research trends as well as traditions

You don’t want a trendy logo … unless you want to change it every few years, or risk having something that looks dated. But don’t ignore the trends – actively research them so that you aren’t subconsciously influenced.

7.    Make your logo easy to update as years go by (simple and text-based)

You’ll notice that many memorable corporate logos are little more than the company name, in a specific typeface and colour. This is fine! It makes the logo much easier to update, and easier to fit in around the design of other materials. Text based logo work best with brochure printing, for example.

Designer’s Own Tips for an Awesome Logo is a post from: Australian Trade Printing Articles