A Word About Color

Matching colors between all your print and web products is critical to your brand. If the colors aren’t consistent, it makes you look unprofessional. Unfortunately, ‘color’ is a complex and often painful topic. It’s so complicated, I’m not going to waste your time even trying to explain how it works. I’m just going to tell you what to do to avoid trouble.

But first I’m going to tell you why it’s so often an issue. The main problem, I think, is that most people think that the colors you see on your monitor and in print are the same. Or, if you’re a bit more sophisticated, you may realize they are different, but in the way that meters and yards are different—just two different units of measure that can be swapped back and forth. But trust me: it’s not like that at all.

OK, you want your web site to look like your business card and brochure. There is one simple way to make sure this happens: Do not use a computer monitor to select colors! Why? Just go to a TV store and look at the same movie playing on five screens. Start with a printed piece. If you have access to Pantone swatches? Give your web designer that number. Why? Because you can trust those ink swatches. If you select the colour off a computer screen you’re just guessing.

And conversely? Never, ever give your designer RGB or hex values for colours and ask them to make a print document from that. Because again, you can’t know that the colour that looks so nice on your laptop will look the same on the laptop of the guy in the seat next to you.