Intro: Working with Color
A redneck walks in to the Green Turtle and orders a Blue Hawaii. The bartender realizes he’s out of Blue Curacao, so he substitutes the lesser-known Green Curacao. He serves it up thinking his patron won’t notice. The redneck takes it and says, “Hey, this Hawaii looks green, not blue!” The bartender replies, “No worries, dude, this joke’s in RGB; in CMYK, the color’s just fine!”
The point is that color is tremendously important to people. Color is all around us. Shades, hues and blends of color affect our moods. Light blue and pale gold are the Bahamas, deep greens and browns are summer camp, black and orange are Halloween. What attributes or images are conjured up by your brand colors? Hopefully, it’s something relevant to your brand.
Your brand’s colors begin in the real world. When used thoughtfully, colors can evoke feelings chosen by a designer. Reds can make us hungry (think Italian restaurant). Greens can have a soothing effect, like an open glade or a cool forest. Yellows can be invigorating, or even alarming. And different tones of each color can affect our moods in different ways.
In the best of all possible worlds, the feelings evoked by colors would be transmitted directly from a brand to the public. But they can’t. They must be translated. And there are a few different color languages to translate them into, and different printing methods that can help keep them consistent.
That bartender would have had a tougher job if the PMS 180-neck had ordered a PMS 311 Hawaii.