Blog couleur

Les marques ne prévoient pas forcément de budget pour la couleur, mais celle-ci peut avoir un impact sur leurs résultats de différentes manières. Comprendre le coût réel de la couleur peut permettre d’accélérer la mise sur le marché, de réduire le gaspillage et d’économiser des milliers de dollars. La couleur joue un rôle déterminant dans les décisions d’achat si l’on co...

Les marques consacrent beaucoup de temps et de ressources à la sélection d’une nouvelle couleur pour représenter leurs produits. Si la couleur ne correspond pas à leurs attentes après l’impression, les tirages sont gâchés et tout le monde se demande comment la couleur a bien pu dévier. Voici un scénario classique. Une marque choisit une couleur de saison pour l’emballage de ses produits et communique cette couleur a...

L’empreinte écologique de la mode est hors de contrôle. Selon le Conseil de défense des ressources naturelles (NRDC, Natural Resources Defense Council), "les usines textiles génèrent un cinquième de la pollution industrielle de l’eau dans le monde et utilisent 20 000 produits chimiques, dont beaucoup sont cancérigènes, pour fabriquer leurs vêtements". Teinture de tissu en usine. Image de NRDC.org.   Un probl&egr...

Pour mesurer la couleur, un dispositif de colorimétrie éclaire un échantillon, capture la quantité de lumière transmise ou reflétée dans la plage de longueurs d’onde de 380 à 780 nm et la quantifie en mesure spectrale. La colorimétrie est nécessaire pour spécifier, quantifier, communiquer, formuler et vérifier la qualité des couleurs pour des travaux dans lesquels celles-ci constituent un critè...

La pandémie de COVID-19 a obligé de nombreuses entreprises à repenser leur façon de communiquer, d’approuver et de produire la couleur. Pour certaines, cela implique d’essayer de poursuivre leurs activités habituelles à distance. Pour d’autres, il s’agit de trouver des moyens de gérer la couleur sans se déplacer. Quoi qu’il en soit, nous savons que nos clients font tout leur possible pour maintenir leur activi...

Recently we had the opportunity to sit down with Laura Guido-Clark, a consumer products designer of color, material, and texture. She has been dubbed an “Experience Consultant,” which reflects her interest and study of human reactions to the look and feel of new products.   Photo by Laura Flippen. We asked Guido-Clark to speak with us because we also appreciate the importance of color in our lives.   Q. What inspired you to pursue a career in color? A. When I wa...

G7® is a proof-to-print process control method that allows you to reliably and efficiently match the visual appearance of the output from multiple printing devices. It works by defining the gray balance and NPDC curves in conjunction with the traditional method of measuring tonal value increase (TVI/dot gain) for each color. G7 can be applied to any type of printing, regardless of the type of ink or printing method, including all types of digital, offset, flexo, gravure printing.   It&r...

Virtual reality has re-imagined the art of apparel and footwear design. 3D design programs like MODO, KeyShot, CLO, Browzwear, Optitex, and Lectra augment the creativity of color and material designers to virtually construct patterns and render realistic 3D garments.  This is exciting technology for brands that want to reduce waste for a greener footprint and accelerate design to keep up with fast fashion. However, designers are notoriously tactile. They need to touch, feel, and gain a...

With so many requests for innovative bases, transparency, and special effects, formulating color for paint, coating, and plastic applications can be a challenge. To keep up, formulation software needs to be innovative, too. We recently launched version 10 of our Color iMatch formulation software, and it is our smartest version yet. It allows you to select cost-reducing parameters, such as lowest cost or fewest colorants, and will determine the best formula for your application. It work...

Like geographic coordinates – longitude, latitude, and altitude – L*a*b* color values give us a way to locate and communicate colors. What’s the history of L*a*b*? In the 1940’s, Richard Hunter introduced a tri-stimulus model, Lab, which is scaled to achieve near uniform spacing of perceived color differences. While Hunter’s Lab was adopted as the de facto model for plotting absolute color coordinates and differences between colors, it was never formally accepted as...

Nous avons récemment écrit sur l’influence de l’apparence sur la couleur. Cet article porte sur certaines des caractéristiques qui influencent l’apparence d’un objet, telles que la texture, la brillance, la transparence et les effets spéciaux, et explique pourquoi il est essentiel de décrire l’apparence dès les premières étapes du flux de conception. Alors que les programmes 3D tentent depuis des années...

You think you’re doing everything right, but your color isn’t consistent. Why? Through the years, designers have used many tools to help them specify color. Color swatches, style guides and product prototypes have been effective, but with the advent of the digital world, these physical tools are no longer enough. To be efficient, designers need to be SPECIFIC. X-Rite Pantone President Ron Voigt recently published an article in MediaPost that explains why. To be effective, designers n...

Color is our perception of reflected light across the visible spectrum. When light hits an object, it absorbs some rays and reflect others. The color of light that reflects back into our eyes is the color we perceive. The more light an object absorbs, the darker it appears. With black, very little light is reflected. Pure black in the presence of light wasn’t achieved until 2014 when Surrey NanoSystems announced the invention of Vantablack. This high-tech artificial substance absorbs 99....

Have you ever sent out a job that passed your inspection, only to have the customer reject it for out-of-tolerance color? You recheck the data and the instrument says the color passed the agreed tolerance… why is the customer saying it doesn’t? We get a LOT of these conflicting measurement calls in technical support. The solution is simple – document a color control program that clearly defines how to assess color, then make sure everyone (including your customer) follow...

Did you read our blog: Are You Using The Right Tolerancing Method? If not, check it out. Today we’re taking the topic one step further to investigate how tolerances are chosen in different industries. A pass-fail tolerance is the amount of color variation that is considered commercially acceptable. In part, tolerances are driven by customer expectations. While color tolerances are very tight in the automotive, plastics, and paint & coatings worlds, they can be much less strict in other...

Consistent color is a journey. A few weeks ago I blogged about the most common pitfalls people run into when starting a color program… Wrong lighting Less-than-perfect color vision Inaccurate physical standards Inconsistent device color measurement …And introduced some inexpensive color tools to help overcome them.   But the journey doesn’t stop there. Even if you’ve been successfully managing color for years, advances in inks, dyes, and substrates are introducing new challen...

If accurate color is a must in your world, then you know the importance of color measurement instrumentation. Spectrophotometers are used in many industries to identify, formulate, measure and communicate color. They can compare samples and standards to identify even the smallest differences. From concept through formulation and production, spectrophotometers are an invaluable part of any color-managed workflow. But have you ever stopped to think how these devices were developed? Today we’ll tak...