Young man, there's no need to feel blue*

brilliant 'CMYK' photo by 'Auntie P'

Of course, we’re preaching to many of the converted here, but the subject of print colours seems to baffle many non-designers. The recent comment from a client that 'CMYK' sounds like a Village People song is a case in point!

Young man, are you listening to me…

And once you start explaining that the colours seen on screen aren’t the same as print colours, some clearly just tune out. So whilst the Village People comment caused a lot of amusement in the studio and has been added to our 'quote bank', it did also throw up some interesting questions about how much clients do and should know about the colour processes. We see this as an essential part of branding, especially when considering the consistency of your brand across all current mediums, from print to digital.

So, in a nutshell, print colours are typically CMYK (that's Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black - Black is represented as 'K' for Key) and Pantone, whilst the on-screen and web colour spectrum is RGB (Red, Green, Blue), but it’s not always that simple. So, for this month’s top tips we’ve put together a handy little guide describing the different colour models and whether they are for print or screen usage.

Get our colour guide here (PDF)

Make sure you take a look at next month’s blog as we’ll be continuing with this theme and looking at logo formats and their different uses, something else that confuses non designers and often designers too!