This week we looked at colour, both a recap of colour theory, the colour wheel and tools to help select colours that work well together, but also some of the psychology behind colour. Colour can make people feel a certain way and this can have implications for a brand, a colour that gives the wrong meaning could put a person off a brand, whereas a colour selected to match the values of a brand can make people feel more comfortable and have a favourable reaction to a brand. Colour psychology is not just as simple as learning each colour and its meaning, these meanings can change depending on the location and culture, and this is where knowing your target market is key as it would be very easy to select a colour based on our own local culture for it to have the opposite connotation in another culture, misrepresenting the brand and damaging its reputation.
We also had an introduction to brand guidelines, and how they are presented. As this is our main deliverable for this module, it is essential we are familiar with these documents, their layout and what they include. To this end, we were given a number of different brand guideline documents for reference and a task to create a mini brand guideline document for a local or smaller brand.
We started this week’s lecture looking at colour, and the four main ways a colour can be identified: CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black), RGB (Red, Green, Blue), Pantone and RAL (Reichs-Ausschuss für Lieferbedingungen which translates as National Commission for Delivery Terms and Quality Assurance). Each of these colour systems has its own use, but in branding terms it is essential to get your brand colours in each of these systems to ensure a consistent brand colour scheme across all your branded products.
RGB and CMYK are the colour systems I am most familiar with and which I would use. RGB is how digital screens create colour, so this is the system I use the most, whether selecting a colour from a colour wheel or using a hexadecimal code (a six-digit code that relates to a colours RGB values). CMYK is used in printing and would be the colour system required for any printed works, I have used this a few times on personal projects, and it can be a little intimidating waiting to see if the colour that appears on screen replicates as you wish in print. Although my most regular interaction with CMYK is changing printer ink.
RGB and CMYK work as opposites in terms of how they create colour, for RGB three beams of light Red, Green and Blue are mixed together to create each individual colour. For each you can have a value between 0-255 and this will determine the amount of each to include in a particular colour. RGB is an additive colour system and black (no colour) has values of 0,0,0 whereas white is all colour so 255,255,255. CMYK is a subtractive colour system it creates colours by layering specific amounts of each of the four colours on top of each other, so that no colour is white and all the colours mixed together is black. For my needs the main thing is remembering that screen based and printed works use different colour systems and ensuring I have both RGB and CYMK values for my colours in my brand guidelines to ensure brand colours remain consistent across digital and print applications.
Pantone colour is a more precise way of matching colours and ensuring consistency in printed work. It was developed in the early 1960s as the Pantone Matching System (PMS) and allows designers to guarantee a colour match regardless of how the colour was developed. These were key in selecting colours for litho-printed works, but as most printers are now digital they work using the CMYK system, leading to many major companies simply working in CMYK. Pantone colours can still be very useful, especially the colour charts for selecting colours and also for a major brand, having your own specific Pantone colour can ensure uniqueness for that brand. There is however a cost factor and this needs to be considered, however if consistency is of a key importance having a Pantone brand colour can guarantee this across all printed works.
Source (https://www.pantone.com/media/catalog/product/g/p/gp1601b-pantone-pms-formula-guide-coated-uncoated-product-1_v1_11_22_1500x1500_.jpg?quality=95&fit=bounds&height=1200&width=1200&canvas=1200:1200) Last Accessed 01/03/23
RAL is a different colour system, it is used to specify colours for paint, powder coating, varnish and plastic coatings. You need a RAL colour that matches your brand colour if you want to colour physical objects, such as painting office walls, painting vehicles or plastic branded items. It uses codes for colours and there are online tools to convert from CMYK to RAL to get a good match of colour, essential for brand consistency.
Source (https://ral-colours.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/e4-RAL-effect-colour-chart-uk.png) Last Accessed 01/03/23
