VCT – WHITE PAPER/CASE STUDY: TALKING ABOUT COLOR A Presentation to the International Card Manufacturers Association (ICMA) June, 7-8 / 2006, Schaumburg, IL By Jorge Ojeda Art Director / Security Graphics Versatile Card Technology In his June 8, 2006 presentation to the ICMA, VCT’s Art Director, Security Graphics Jorge Ojeda illustrates how colors can influence and affect customer decisions. What you (think you) see isn’t always necessarily what you get. Ojeda’s presentation provides a greater understanding of the complexities of color management and the difficulties experienced when dealing with color choices in the production of plastic cards and other items. Everything Is Relative – Color By Association: First of all, Ojeda illustrates how color is an important tool relative to design but also how painful the color decision process can be. Ojeda explains how color can be a very subjective matter, for example when approving a press-check and how it can influence the way we perceive things at a certain moment in time. He explains how we, by association, get used to seeing the same color in the same object. He illustrates this by showing his audience a green stop sign, asking what happens if the colors we normally associate with certain objects are switched. What Happens When Expectations Are Violated Ojeda poses some thought-provoking questions: What impact would this kind of color-switch have on your product? Would sales increase or would it have a negative impact? How will the consumer react if the product’s color suddenly is changed? Ojeda illustrates this further by showing a famous drink sample but with the bottle’s color changed, asking whether the color might impact the consumer’s taste. Ojeda drives the message home by showing examples from nature in unexpected colors. A slide of a stop sign showing violet instead of red drives the message home: Confusion is often the result when our color expectations are violated. Our brains tend to have certain color associations tied to particular words, objects or products. Visual Adaptation: Ojeda goes on to explain that this has to do with visual adaptation. “Our sense of sight is incredibly adaptive and works in conjunction with our brains to provide us with rational visual information,” states Ojeda, continuing that “sometimes our brains get confused.” He illustrates this with color swatches, asking his audience to name a red color. Many names are mentioned, such as cherry, apple, Bombay, pimento, tomato, rose, burnt orange, PMS 485 and Pantone 186. Ojeda reminds the audience that they are looking at a projected color sample, which is a result of the reflection from the projector onto a white screen. He reminds them his monitor might have a different color tone than what they are looking at. A Complex World: The Difficulties in Getting Predictable, Digital Color: “Reproducing colors using a computer may be a simple concept,” states Ojeda, “but sometimes complex in execution.” Ojeda begins by exploring the simple concepts and, once the basics are understood, guides his audience towards greater complexity in order to explain how to get predictable, digital color. After explaining the color basics of the natural world, Ojeda explains the RGB system used in color monitors such as TVs and computer screens
with color pixels. He explains how projectors use filters in order to separate images into red, green and blue light. Digital capture devices are based on the same principles: Both digital cameras and digital scanners measure the amounts or red, green and blue of an object. The information is then used to control how much red, green and blue light is needed in order to display the image on-screen or as a projection. Ojeda cautions that most such devices send their result images in RGB mode and not in CMYK, which is used in the world of print. “Everything changes when you start using ink to reproduce images,” says Ojeda, asking, “Why does red ink look red?” Controlling the absorption of colors is needed in order to produce the reflection of the desired color on print. And imagine the fact that combinations of just three colors; red, green and blue can help us produce the 16.7 million colors we can see on a computer. Additive vs. Subtractive Color Systems: The additive color system involves light emitted directly from a source, before an object reflects the light. The additive reproduction process mixes various amounts of red, green and blue to reproduce other colors. The subtractive color system involves colorants and reflected light. Subtractive color starts with an object (often a substrate such as paper or white plastic in our case) that reflects light and uses colorants (such as pigments or dyes) to subtract portions of the white light illuminating an object to produce other colors. If an object reflects all the white light back to the viewer, it appears white. If an object absorbs (subtracts) all the light illuminating it, no light is reflected back to the viewer and it appears black. Color paintings, color photography and all color printing processes use the subtractive process to reproduce color. In these cases, the reflective substrate is canvas (paintings) or paper (photographs, prints), which is usually white. The Challenge Posed by Different Devices: However—these colors aren’t always the same when we see them through different devices. This is the beginning of many headaches, says Ojeda, when it comes to design, customer approval and printing. Ojeda illustrates this by giving an example of our ability to make colorrelated decisions: Just buying a regular felt-tip marker from different manufacturers will give you different varieties of one color. A red felt-tip marker would still be red, but they would be different shades of red. And, not only that, buying a red felt-tip marker from the same manufacturer doesn’t even guarantee consistent results. They could be from different batches or one could be older than the other. The same goes for printing. For example, each printer will deliver a slightly different result when printing the same image because the inks are slightly different. An Epson or a Canon desktop printer would produce slightly different results. “The problems don’t stop there,” states Ojeda: “The same thing happens with different brands of computer monitors.” And, further; “Just take a stroll through your local, electronic superstore and look at all the TVs that are tuned in to the same station. Even though they are being sent the exact same signal, they all look different.” Ojeda cites a typical example of what he experiences when dealing with customers. Ojeda uses a neutral environment with no external light source so that he consistently keeps the same light conditions. His monitors are calibrated; the same goes for his printer, scanner and digital camera. However, upon finishing a requested design and sending it to the customer by e-mail, the customer doesn’t think it has the color he had imagined. Ojeda then asks him what kind of monitor and what kind of computer he is using. He finds out the customer is using a
PC whereas the design is produced on a Mac. The customer then realizes it may be better to send the image to their designer, who also uses a Mac, in order to get a better idea of what the color really looks like. The same thing happens with color printouts, says Ojeda. For example, the customer approves designs from an Epson printer produced by an RGB file that uses saturated colors that can only be reproduced accurately by another Epson inkjet printer. However, the image is destined for commercial printing, where CMYK is used. This means the color will look different when it comes to the end product. Color Perception and Surroundings: In the design world, this is a nearly daily occurrence. Therefore, Ojeda thinks it is time to educate customers more about such differences and the problem with colors. Ojeda also explains that our color perception is strongly affected by what surrounds the image we are looking at. In fact, it is possible to perceive two identical colors as different if they are placed against two differently colored backgrounds. He illustrates this by showing two identical samples of red surrounded by different color backgrounds—resulting in the impression of two completely different shades of red. He then shows that they are, in fact, identical by removing the colored backgrounds. Ojeda says the same kind of illusion can happen during a press OK. To drive the point about perception and visual illusions home, Ojeda shows a slide with circles in black and white. The circles appear to be rotating but the rotation is mere illusion due to the image’s color variations. Color Management & ICC: After presenting these interesting perceptual problems involved in choosing colors, Ojeda presents a solution in form of color management. Color management is designed to deal with the variations among devices. What is needed is exact measurement of the red, green and blue that our scanner and monitor use plus measurement of what shades of CMY used by your printer. When we measure the exact shades of RGB or CMY used by a device, the result is an ICC profile. This is a small file describing how something reproduces color. This is in a format approved by the International Color Consortium. Designers can then feed the file into their design software in order to do the magic necessary to produce consistent color on each device. You’ll end up with a profile for your monitor, your desktop printer, your scanner and in some cases your digital camera (unless it uses the white-balance setting as a substitute). This is similar to commercial printers’ use of color calibration templates. What Does the Customer Really Want? The color matching process will move faster if proper color management can be applied to our environments. This makes it easier to figure out what the customer really wants in terms of color. Nothing is more amusing, according to Ojeda, than watching the “color dance” between client and designer. It can be a tense and uncomfortable time for both, he adds, when neither can agree on hue, shade, tint or density of the color. Ojeda finishes his presentation with an example: A customer wants a “champagne color” as the background of his plastic card. Ojeda proceeds to search for real photos of champagne color on the Internet. He finds champagne colors with bubbles, yellowish, transparent tone and because of its translucency, the color changes depending on the background behind it. On top of that, champagne colors vary between brands. In addition, people may call something a “champagne” color that really isn’t. Ojeda then proceeds to do a color analysis and is proud to find what he thinks is a perfect match. He then uses that information to produce a color
printout of a card with his calibrated inkjet printer. A proof is FedExed overnight to the customer, and the next day Ojeda receives a call that goes like this: “Jorge, you know what, I am thinking of a root beer color. Can you do that for me, please? I need it right away because we need to go to press soon.” And thus, the process starts all over again. After another round of researching the perfect color for root beer and sending the printout to the customer, the customer calls back to tell Ojeda he has seen this red Ferrari and is now thinking that’s the color he wants on his card… And, once again, the process starts all over. Ojeda is relieved that, this time, the desired color isn’t transparent and doesn’t have bubbles, and that it is narrowed down to one brand of car. He visits a Ferrari dealer equipped with his Pantone Catalogue and Pantone Cue (a device that measures solid colors and gives you the equivalence for Pantone, RGB, CMYK as well as web or monitor colors) to make sure he gets the color exactly right. Ojeda knows he can obtain a nice effect using different ink compositions like metallic particles in order to get a matching color on press and with a polish lamination that will actually match the desired Ferrari color for the customer. But, of course, we see things differently in different surroundings and there is also the question of light reflection. After sharing some concepts related to color perception and the issues surrounding the choice and management of colors, Ojeda reinforces the importance of having consistently lit and colored environment during design, prepress and production to obtain the look the customer really wants. He reminds his audience, however, that no matter what we see and how we control our environments in order to get the right color; it always comes down to each individual having a different point of view. We always see things a different way. “The perception of color, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Regardless of anything that you have learned about color it’s ultimately a personal experience,” he concludes. ###
Jorge Ojeda, Art Director / Security Graphics for Versatile Card Technology (VCT), is the recipient of four American Graphic Design Awards in the plastic card category. In addition, Ojeda’s badge design was selected by the International Card Manufacturers’ Association (ICMA) at its international conference in 2004. Ojeda has also been chosen to use his knowledge of security graphics on several national ID cards around the world. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Ojeda has been with VCT since 2001 and has 15 years of experience in the plastic card industry. Prior to joining VCT, Ojeda worked with plastic printing in Brazil, Venezuela and other Latin American Countries. Besides being responsible for card designs, Ojeda is also responsible for VCT’s corporate identity and website.