Branding is very powerful and no matter where you look in a big and successful company, you’ll see their brand engrained throughout it. Their branding will run through everything from invoices, emails, letters, social media, adverts, packaging, and even the building and vehicles.
If you have a great brand then you really should adopt this approach and place it in every conceivable place… including your print.
As we said on the blog last year, print is still very much part of the marketing mix and getting it right should be high on your agenda this year.
One of the main areas of your branding could be the tone of voice, your tagline, or even your logo… or so you might think. But when it comes to a solid brand, your colours and how you use them could be the difference between creating winning pieces of print marketing and putting together something that doesn’t look like it’s part of your business or brand at all (apart from the logo in the corner!).
The colours in your branding are powerful and memorable. The role of colour in design and branding says something important about you and if you’ve spent the time getting it right with your set-up, it makes sense to continue that in print.
It’s said that even when a Coca-Cola can is crushed, everyone will still know it’s a Coke can! Now that’s powerful!
Think about the memorable red and yellow of DHL, or the orange of Sainsbury’s, or the simple blue and yellow of IKEA.
Colours matter, so let’s make sure you continue them in your printing.
So, can we match the colours of your brand? Absolutely! And here’s what we’ll need to do it.
CYMK
These special four letters are what we use to print in colour, and they matter to your printing. The CMYK colour model is a subtractive model used in colour printing and refers to the four process inks used: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and BlacK.
These four inks are the core colours in print and enable us to create the perfect full colour images for your printing.
Pantone colours
The Pantone colour matching system is a globally standardised colour system that gives everyone a code or set of rules to easily replicate colours in many things, but largely in printing.
By standardising the colours we all use, Pantone (a New York printing company set up in the 1950s) created a system that enables printers like us to make sure that your print colours are the consistent across your printed materials.
When we use these Pantone colours in the printing process it is then possible to replicate your company colours exactly as they were first designed by your branding company.
Pantone colours are also referred to as Spot Colours (see below).
Brand guidelines
These are your key to consistency in all marketing, but certainly in your printing. Your brand guidelines will show your logo and variations of it as well as the fonts that are to be used in any marketing or design.
In your brand guidelines you’ll find your colours, usually with a # symbol to show their unique fade and grade to ensure you get the exact match on all your content and of course your printing.
When you have a brand created for you, you should be supplied with brand guidelines. If you weren’t, go back to your branding company and ask for one. It’s an essential manual for your brand that you’ll use over and over again if you do it right.
The simple thing here is not to allow your branding expert to over-complicate it. All you really need are the fonts and colours with some variations on your logo to boot. That’s really all you’ll ever need – a one-page PDF that guides all future marketing material. It makes things so much easier in future – trust us!
What’s the difference between full colour and spot colour?
Full colour (or CMYK) also known as four colour printing is limited, and at times you might not get the exact match for your print. Spot printing works differently and the key differences are:
- CMYK: The four inks are combined using different percentages and at different screen angles, creating a range of colours (but not all).
- Spot colour printing offers a wide variety of inks that are physically (and precisely) mixed from a wide range of base colours, instead of just four.
The result? The spot colour printing is solid, more consistent, and more accurate than the standard four colour printing (CYMK).
Keep the colours simple
If you’re looking to future proof your brand for cost purposes, then one simple way to do this is to keep the spot colours down to one or two. This saves money in the future and you could maybe have just two major colours instead of lots of smaller ones.
It’s a simple thing, but having five or six major colours will cost you so much more and although it’s certainly not a problem to a printer like us, we do have to charge more as the print is more complex.
Can we match your company colours?
Yes, 100%. With spot printing from us and some good brand guidelines, your printing will be a great match for your brand and website and be a real asset to that important job of staying memorable.
You might think that your logo or tagline is all you need but the colours mean so much more. Think about colour and its role in nature and you can see how powerful it can be.
Red means something completely different from green and your printing could mean something so much more if you complemented it with colours your designer chose on its conception.
Need help? Just ask! We love to help guide people through the world of design and print.
Contact us now on 01926 332969 to discuss your printing and how it can fit right into your current marketing mix.