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Resources · Colour

Why your red
looks different.

Colour on a screen is light. Colour on a shirt, a sign, and a business card is three different materials behaving three different ways. Knowing which differences are normal is what keeps a brand looking consistent.

Start here

The colour systems, briefly

RGB, CMYK, thread and vinyl — what shifts between materials, and what to record so it stays consistent.

RGB
Red, green, blue — light. Used by every screen. Can produce vivid colours that no ink can reproduce, which is why some screen colours cannot survive the trip to print.
CMYK
Cyan, magenta, yellow, black — ink laid on paper. The standard for commercial print. Bright RGB blues and greens shift most noticeably in the conversion.
Spot colour
A single ink mixed to a specified recipe rather than built from CMYK. The most consistent option where a process supports it.
Thread
Embroidery colour comes from a thread chart, not a mixing process. There is a nearest match rather than an exact one.
Vinyl
Cut and printed vinyl come in manufactured colour ranges. Like thread, you choose from what exists.
Watch out for

Judging colour on an uncalibrated monitor is the root of most colour disappointment. Two screens in the same room disagree; a screen and a sheet of paper disagree more. If a colour genuinely has to match, match it to a physical sample rather than to a display.

RGB vs CMYK

What to record for your brand

Write these down once. Every job afterwards references them instead of guessing.

HEX values
For anything on a screen — website, social, email signatures.
CMYK values
For print. If you only have a HEX, we can convert, but a conversion is an interpretation and yours should be the one on record.
A spot reference if you have one
The most portable way to describe a colour between suppliers.
Which colour does what
Primary, secondary, accent, background. Without this, every designer makes a different reasonable choice.
A printed sample you trust
The most useful reference of all. Physical beats numerical when materials are involved.

Where colour legitimately shifts

None of these are faults. They are the materials behaving normally, and knowing them in advance prevents an unpleasant surprise at proof.

Coated versus uncoated paper
Uncoated stock absorbs ink, so the same values print softer and slightly darker. Coated holds ink on the surface and reads brighter.
Fabric colour underneath
A garment colour shows through anything printed on it unless there is a white underbase. The same design reads differently on white, grey, and navy.
Thread against ink
Stitched colour has a sheen and a direction. It will never look identical to the same colour printed flat.
Outdoor exposure
Sunlight fades some colours faster than others. Reds and some vivid colours are the usual first to go.
Different runs, different days
A tiny variation between production runs is normal in every process. Supplying a reference sample is how you keep it tight.

Rather than guess

Ask us when…

  • A colour has to match something you have printed before — send us the sample.
  • You are producing the same brand across garments, signage, and print at once.
  • You only have a HEX value and the piece is going to press.
  • The design relies on a colour that looks unusually vivid on screen.

None of these are a problem. They are the points where two minutes now saves a reprint later.

Start here

Matching something you already have?

Send us the physical sample, not a photo of it. It is the only reliable way to match across materials, and it costs you a stamp.

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  2. 2 Tell us what you're creating
  3. 3 Receive your estimate
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