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Colour clever
It’s hardly surprising that a magazine dedicated to the large format screen, digital and litho printing sector is obsessed by colour: in particularly repeatability. However, it’s only recently that I’ve started to study colour selection.
It all began while researching website design. Before staring the development of a new training website I asked a colleague to investigate the competitions’ strengths and weaknesses. After a few hours, my colleague made a throw away comment: ‘Well at least we know what our competitors’ favourite colour is, every web site is blue’.
This immediately got my interest. Either they know something we don’t or they are simply playing follow the leader. Time to investigate colour. I’ve spent plenty of time talking to companies that specialise in helping printers reproduce colour accurately (this issue is an example of that) but I’ve never really investigated colour itself.
During my product design education I can remember being taught to spray all prototype designs grey. That way, clients would focus on form and function, not colour.
Well, several websites and one good book later and I feel ready to apply colour in a much more confident fashion, especially the interaction of different colours in the same work space. So much so, I’ve started working with specialists to develop a new hands-on Masterclass regarding the application of colour in business-to-business marketing. (If any readers are interested I can e-mail information).
Colour can have a massive impact on a customer’s perception of a supplier. The solution is simple, choose the right colour and reproduce it accurately. Seriously, I encourage all printers and suppliers to the print industry to study colour theory. I am finding it a fascinating, almost endless, subject which I hope to exploit for years to come.
Jon Barrett, Editor
