Did you ever pay attention to the names of colours? In fashion the same colours appear every few years but with different names. What used to be pink in one year goes as fuchsia in the next season. Beige is too dull so we call it «desert sand».
Did you ever paint a wall? Maybe you came across to some very interesting names, too. «Cooking Apple Green» can be guessed as a shade of green. But what do you make of Charlotte’s locks»? Well, it happens to be a dark orange hue.
The perfect colours for your brand
What shades do we use for what occasion?
Colours are important for your corporate design. Besides black, white and grey you might want only one additional colour. Or you go for three «colourful» shades; either you decide to choose a colour harmony or stark contrasts. This depends largely on your product. This book might give you some ideas.
To use colours correctly there are some things you should know.
RGB
What you see on the screen are so called RGB colours. Red, green and blue. So, when you see yellow you actually do not look at yellow but at a mixture of a certain amount of red, green and blue pixels that emulate yellow for your eyes.
RGB colours have no fancy names but just hexadecimal numbers. For example, the code #ffd700 is a shade of yellow. Try it by typing the value in the respective field.
CMYK
When you use a printing device in your office or at home all colours are composed by CMYK. Cyan (blue), magenta (pink), yellow and kohl(black). Since the colour is calculated by your device during the printing process, the result can vary between the different devices.
The values 0, 16, 100, 0 create the same yellow as the code you see under RGB.
Pantone
Pantone is an entire colour system that is used for offset printing.
There are hundreds of shades and the company invents new ones almost every week. Unlike RGB and CMYK they are not calculated during the printing process but delivered ready-made. Like expect it from paint for walls or cars.
This system is typically a bit more expensive since only printing companies can work with it. But it is worth it, if you need a certain quantity.
