The Need for Industry Standards for Visual Color Evaluation in Retail LED Lighting In the retail industry, lighting is a critical factor that influences how products are perceived by customers. However, the lack of standardized LED lighting poses significant challenges that can impact both retailers and consumers. Inconsistent Color Reproduction One of the primary issues with the absence of standardized LED lighting is inconsistent color reproduction. Different LED lights can produce varying co...
Why Backward Compatibility in Spectrophotometers Is Key to Consistent Color If you’re here, chances are you rely on a benchtop spectrophotometer to keep your color quality on point. From textiles and plastics to paint, coatings, and more, these high-precision instruments are critical to maintain consistency in your processes. At X-Rite, we engineer our spectrophotometers to perform reliably for years, even in the toughest environments. But no instrument lasts forever, and eventually, an ...
Working in prepress holds a unique challenge. Even if your color workflow is tight, everything can fall apart if the customer’s file isn’t color managed. We’ve all seen it. You receive a file that the customer claims is ready to print, yet when you open it on your computer, the colors don’t look right at all. You can’t send it to print without knowing for sure, because you’re the one who will take the hit for wasted time and materials if it’s wrong....
When all of final production packaging comes together on the store shelf, it’s a brand’s moment of truth. Do the stand-up pouches, overwraps, and corrugated POP displays match? How close is the color to its standard? We know you spend so much time and money designing, proofing, sampling, printing, and shipping… so where does the color go wrong? Is it an issue with accuracy, consistency, or both? Package designs come together on the shelf. Here you see pouches, labels, cartons, and corrugated wit...
What happens when you have more than 2,000 brand colors to manage across a complex global packaging supply chain? Things get complicated! Although it may seem easier to create a new color than to dig through databases or binders of color drawdowns to find the closest match, the problem comes later when you’re faced with a huge, unmanageable library. One of our clients, a well-known fast-moving consumer packaged goods (FMCG) company, understands how easily things can get out of control. They wer...
When someone says “apple,” do you think red, green, or yellow? What do you do if a customer asks you to produce a color using descriptions that are not specific enough? Check out how something as seemingly simple as color communication can determine whether your color program succeeds or fails. A picture may paint a thousand words, but words alone do not paint a thousand colors. Circular conversations about color happen everyday. They generally start with someone asking for a sligh...
This time of year, the internet is full of Top 10 Countdowns. It’s a tradition we’ve embraced since 1940 when the Billboard published its first chart ranking the top selling recorded songs. Since then, others have jumped on the bandwagon to highlight the most popular trends of the previous year. We’ve been publishing our top-read blogs since 2016, and we’re happy to see some educational topics like color perception, tolerancing, and spectrophotometers continue to r...
Companies use optical brightening agents (OBAs), also called Fluorescent Whitening Agents (FWAs), to give their products a brighter, whiter appearance. Although adding OBAs creates a brighter product, the addition of these chemicals fundamentally alters the way the color is seen, which makes it impossible to accurately evaluate color by eye. Materials and fabrics that contain OBAs may appear similar in production under factory lighting, but those same products can look much different under othe...
Color plays a major role in our food choices. Many foods like Swiss cheese, strawberries, broccoli, and mashed potatoes always look the same. We know what to expect when we take our first bite. But what if your mashed potatoes were green? Would they taste different? Would you even try them? Why Color Analysis is Important for the Food Industry There has been a lot of research about the role color plays in how we perceive and even taste food. These studies show that our judgment of f...
Whether you’re choosing colors for a brand, creating palettes for a new product line, or designing seasonal packaging, inspiration is a key step in color selection. Inspiration can come from normal, everyday places, for example: A party. The grocery store. Sporting events. And of course, the great outdoors. Mother Nature has a knack for creating the most beautiful color palettes. “Colors for Autumn/Winter 2022/2023 contrast our competing desires for calm and comfort with energy boost...