Spot colors, Custom colors, Brand colors, and Pantone Colors

All these are names for the same type of thing: an ink that requires its own plate in the printing process. This ink color could be in addition to any or all of the usual four C, M, Y, and K inks used in the printing process, or it could be used all by itself.

Spot color inks are useful for several reasons: for producing a color not within the CMYK color gamut, maintaining a color specific to a certain brand or product (think Tiffany's, 3M, UPS, Coke, what colors do these companies bring to mind? Those are their brand colors.) or even for shrinking costs when only one or two colors (instead of four or five) can be used to produce a project.

When submitting a project with a spot color, you can identify that spot color several different ways to your printer:

• with a physical sample of that color, (but sometimes the physical sample doesn't fit in your car to bring it to the print shop)
• with numerical values in a specified color space, such as CMYK, or Lab (but these numbers are all different depending on what color space they are in, so identify which color space you are using.)
• with an ink formula or recipe to mix the color, (not a usual way, but certainly possible)
• or most likely, with a color chip or a name from a color book, with the most popular color book in the U.S. being produced by Pantone. (Pantone colors are in many graphic design programs already!)

Please refrain from using vague words like "very light pink" or "a vibrant orange" or "it's just a regular red, but I want it to pop," as the only definition of your spot color when identifying it for your printer. Color is very subjective, and the words "vibrant orange" is going to mean something different to everyone else.

For this reason, the Pantone color guide book (the actual physical book) is useful for picking your colors even though most graphic design programs have digital color books available. It is also nice to see what the actual Pantone color will look like as opposed to what is on the screen. But since the last time we bought the full range of color books from Pantone, they came in their own little suitcase, there may be financial considerations before you buy every kind of color from Pantone.

The color book does have a handy feature. If the Pantone color is achievable in CMYK, then a four-dot icon is underneath the color name. Like this picture demonstrates here:

We have put together a list of helpful hints about spot colors. Please read through this list for helpful suggestions on what to do with your spot color project before you submit it to your printer:

1. Tell your printer which spot color you want. You can use any of the methods described above, but make sure it gets said. Out loud or written down. It may sound silly to spell this out, but sometimes people forget to tell their printer, "There's a spot color on this job."
2. Make certain that the spot color is named the exact same thing across programs. If in Illustrator you use "PANTONE 123C," and in InDesign you use "Pantone 123C" and then place that Illustrator file in InDesign, your final file will have two spot colors. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but without care, the number of spot colors in a project can multiply as quickly as tribbles. (I think the current record at Lorraine Press is well over 200 spot colors used in one document that was only supposed to have 1 spot color.)
3. Double check in all programs used for your project that your spot color is defined as a spot color and not as a process color. The objects using the color marked process, even with the same name as your spot color, will come out on the CMYK plates and not the spot color plate. Once again, this sounds pretty basic, but it has caused headaches for people in the past.
4. If there is an exact color, or an acceptable range of hues for that exact color that the printer absolutely needs to match or be constrained to, make certain that a physical sample of that exact color along with any acceptable shade tolerances is in the printer's possession, preferably before the job proofs, and especially before the job gets to the press. Nobody, you or the press operator, wants a surprise at the press check.
5. If the printed piece is going to be subjected to heat, (for example be laminated), after printing, ask about possible color shifts with your spot color. If you are concerned about color shifts, ask for a laminated sample before moving forward with that color.
6. If you are using a spot color and an aqueous coating in your project, be aware that with some spot colors in the blue, violet, and purple ranges, coatings will cause unacceptable visual color shifts after drying. Therefore, your ink manufacturer, or printer, may substitute pigments in your color which will not shift with applied coatings. And those pigments may not be an exact match for the original specified color. Check with your printer before printing to alleviate any concerns in this area.
7. Double check your project to make sure that all the objects that should be using your spot color are actually using your spot color and not a process color similar to your spot color. This has tripped up customers in the past. One way to check this if you have a pdf of your project is in Adobe Acrobat (not Reader). It has a handy feature called Output Preview which will let you check your pdf for your spot color. (With recent versions of Acrobat: go to Advanced, then Print Production, then Output Preview. It will bring up a menu that lets you turn on and off your color separations. It will also show you if you have the correct number of spot colors in your pdf.)

See, that isn't too complicated. Just take some time to look at the details, and you'll have your spot color project sail through its printing with, well, flying colors.