Signage Education | Accurate Color Graphic Tips – Part 1

Creating graphics with accurate color is a shared responsibility. You’ll need a sign company that truly understands the many factors that affect color reproduction, but you’ll also need to know how to create and submit your art if accurate color is important.

In this week’s article, we present some tips to make color graphic production easier. We’ll start with tips to assess and select a vendor this week, and cover suitable discipline in artwork creation in a subsequent article.

Finding A Provider

Accurate color production requires discipline and process based on science. The science involves understanding, then controlling the factors that affect color production. Sadly, most sign companies have no understanding of color management at all. Of the few that understand color management, very few have formalized a proper workflow to ensure that color critical graphics will be accurate the first time, every time.

Without a color managed workflow, your sign company’s only option in producing a given color is trial and error. Invariably, this also involves having you settle for “close enough”. After their first failure, you’re probably already locked into that vendor – they have your deposit and your project time clock is ticking – so you’re stuck.

Fortunately, finding a vendor for color critical applications can be as simple as asking the right questions of a prospective vendor. A brief interview will eliminate the majority of those that would otherwise waste your time. Some things to ask a prospective vendor are identified below. Ranked by criticality, most signs shops will fail higher on the list, in which case it should be a short interview.

• What hardware and software are used for color calibration?
  If your vendor doesn’t own a color spectrophotometer, they’re not a color-managed shop.

• Are media-specific profiles used?
  Digital media starts out white, but there are shades of white. CMYK printing relies on reflected light, so the shade of white matters, as does the media finish. A gloss media requires a different profile than a matte media – even with otherwise similar media from the same manufacturer.

• Are media profiles manufacturer provided, or created internally?
  If a sign company uses profiles from the manufacturer, they don’t truly care about accurate color. These profiles must be created in the target environment where printer, ink, temperature, and humidity are known, controlled and noted at time of creation. A profile created during warm, dry summer months may not be usable in cooler weather as both temperature and humidity affect ink absorption.

• What type of lighting is used?
  Neither incandescent or fluorescent bulbs produce natural light, so the perception of printed matter and images on a designer’s computer can be affected. Though the solutions are varied, a prospective vendor should be able to speak intelligently about their environment and describe what they have in place to present accurate color throughout their workflow.

• How often are devices calibrated?
  Electronic devices such as scanners and monitors require periodic calibration (profile creation). What is a reasonable frequency depends on the device, and is probably less critical as merely having an understanding that a maintenance schedule needs to be developed and adhered to.

• How is color managed – what elements of your workflow and environment exist to ensure accurate color production?
  If your question is met with blank stares, I recommend finding a way to end the interview and move on to the next prospective vendor.
  If you sense some excitement and passion in the response, you may have found a rare vendor worth giving a try.

Though finding a good vendor can be time consuming, it’s a needed discipline for color critical applications. By choosing the right vendor, your investment will prove worthwhile by reducing wasted time, money, effort, energy and frustration.

With accurate color production being a shared responsibility, finding the right vendor is only a start.
In next week’s article, we’ll present what you or your graphic artist should know to ensure that your art is properly created prior to submission to your sign company.

About Spectrum Signs
Spectrum Signs is an independent, locally owned, full service sign manufacturing company located in south Orange County – Mission Viejo, California. We are affiliated with over 240 independent sign companies with access to resources nationwide. This affiliation provides significant discounts from sign suppliers, and allows us to offer competitive pricing without compromising in quality and service.

For more information, contact:

Spectrum Signs
23382 Madero Suite L
Mission Viejo, CA 92691
(949) 297-3800