There is no denying the persuasive power color holds Coca-Cola red, Tiffany blue, John Deere green. Showing your brand’s individuality isn’t just about ensuring consumers recognize you, it’s also about differentiating your brand from the competition.
Powerhouse companies leverage color to a point where it’s synonymous with their identities.
But what happens in stores when packaging colors don’t line up with each other? Consumers may think a product is old or defective, and the sale along with trust is lost. CGS supports open standard to digitally exchange brand colors with ORIS CxF Toolbox and ORIS CxF Designer.
Today the graphic arts industry is seeing an increasing need for the exchange of both measurement data and metadata derived from or associated with such measurement data. Currently all of the existing standardized graphic technology formats for such data are based on ASCII keyword-value pair approaches (ISO 12642) or XML flat file approaches (ISO 28178).
These both have limitations and have not been widely used.
ICC profiles
Effectively communicating printing characteristics of inks along the supply chain is essential to ensuring the final piece matches a brand’s vision. Traditionally, inks are thought of as either process or spot colors. Process colors are printed using a combination of the four standard process inks — CMYK, and typically are communicated to the printer in the form of ICC profiles. Spot colors are premixed inks used when color accuracy is critical, and to accurately reproduce colors outside the process color gamut. For the last decade, the ISO 17972 proposal has been working to define provides the data to accurately simulate ink colors, tint ramps and overprints for design prints and contract proofing.
What’s next
In preparation for the standardization of CxF data use, CGS worked with SmileyColor to develop tools to create, analyze and design CxF files. ORIS CxF Toolbox creates an ISO 17972-4 compliant CxF or CxF/X-4 from a measurement file, including spectral data, delivering a file that allows the printer to define ingredients and tolerances, data for ink formulation and pre-qualification of inks, proofing and process control systems.
ORIS CxF Designer, an illustrator plug-in imports CxF data containing a brand owner’s specific brand colors or libraries into the Adobe design software color pallet. It then embeds spectral data, tints ramps and opacity information to final PDF/X files in an open file format.
ORIS CxF Toolbox and ORIS CxF Designer utilize the new ISO standards and an open format the entire supply chain can utilize. These tools provide all the information required to improve quality, reduce costly errors and improve customer satisfaction.
