Purple vinyl for BT logo

[Peter Cassidy]

Hi David

I never go on Pantone or RGB, CMYK blah blah when it comes to vinyl as it’s just not the same mate. yes, you could do a colour matching process in print, but allow for several hours and print, laminate waste if it must be the same!

alternatively, go for a close colour match, explain to the customer and allow them to pick?

[David Bilton]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the reply. I was hoping that someone may have already matched the “BT” purple to a sign vinyl. I would have attempted to match it myself had the Pantone colour existed in my swatch. I think I’ll quote the job stating that the customer will have to chose the colour from our standard vinyl range. I think it will be somewhere close to Metamark M7-183 Violet, but with not having anything to match to, it’s only ever going to be a guess.

Cheers

David

[David Hammond]

Alternatively print a CMYK, or Pantone Bridge chart off on your machine.

Show the customer and let them pick any colour from it. Most RIPs have the function to print swatches.

[Robert Lambie]

As David says, print off a colour chart and try to compare from that mate.
Then again, if you don’t actually have a physical colour proof of the colour then your guessing again.
I had a customer only last week complain our colours were out on some signs we gave him. (ordered without colour spec, just .jpg of the logo)
I went to see him as I wanted his ongoing work. i was amazed he was comparing letter headed paper to our printed vinyl with laminate.
then he was amazed, as I walked around his yard showing him his factory fascia, car parking signs, a fleet of vans all sat parked up and “NONE” matched each other. some were miles out and I’m talking Navy Blue and Cobalt Blue, with some red and some orange. he apologised and said he hadn’t looked at the colours before but because he liked our design he showed the girl in the office and “she said the colours look wrong”. 🤔😏

Anyway, I tell customers the colours will be as close a match to our vinyl supplier, but if it’s printed and it needs to be exact or as close as we can get it, then a colour matching service charge will be applied.
Please keep in mind, different printers get different results onto different types of media.
You could hit the colour perfectly on Arlon and get a different result on Avery. then laminate it, and get a different colour shade again. 🤨

[Dan]

I’m pretty sure in Onyx you can print your Pantone patch along with a few different shades so you can get a close match. I’ve not done this but I’m sure I’ve seen it, maybe in the media manager section.