Pantone names...

[monq]

Hi all,

as you know - you can change the names of spot colours in Illustrator from lets say, PMS 425 C to "My lovely 425 C is perfectly formed".

Now - when it comes to the praxis of sending artwork to a printer's house, it is my assumption that the printer should never use the actual name itself to locate the colours / all the information for the spot colour is there besides the name.

Is this a correct assumption? Or I should never tweak the names to avoid confusion? I am asking because one of my previous company added a tag at the end of each colour (i.e. Pantone 425 Duh).

Cheers!

 

[CHM]

Always best to keep standard color names.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

I have printed jobs with disappearing strokes, that turned out to be labeled Pantone 116C, but the designer had defined as black. The name overrides the appearance.

Also InDesign uses the first definition of custom colours. If you import a graphic with "Logo colour" as blue and then another logo with a red logo defined as "Logo colour" both will be blue! Just so you know.

 

[monq]

Thanks both, I will make sure that all the colours used are indeed the ones that need to be used without any extra info on the tags.

Cheers!

 

[rich apollo]

it is my assumption that the printer should never use the actual name itself to locate the colours / all the information for the spot colour is there besides the name.

This is incorrect. The naming of colors is critical. The name is often ALL the printer has. Inconsistent spot color naming has been a prepress challenge forever.

 

[monq]

Thanks rich apolo. As usual - assumptions are the mother of all evil...

Cheers!

 

[chevalier]

This is a royal PITA for us at the printing level. Let me explain why...

Example 01
I got a huge set of SKUs today from a very large multinational publicly traded prepress house that will remain nameless (starts with an S) where all of the Pantone inks were named PMS### instead of Pantone 300 C, Pantone Yellow 012 U or Pantone 376 M. They were also assigned CMYK values (from where I do not know) instead of the library LAB values.

Now this may not seem like a big deal but with modern equipment being interconnected with monitor previews (our presses have calibrated monitors for preview at console), automated trapping done based on density and type (calculated by LAB VALUE! and naming conventions), etc. the whole automated system gets gummed up and produces lackluster results unless everything is remapped at the earliest possible step.

Example 02
Customer logo uses Pantone 300 C. Designer is using a desktop printer like a Xerox Phaser or some "color calibrated" office copier. Yeah, thats really nice and all but just because your CMYK is supposedly calibrated it doesn't mean that it is accurately going to print non-CMYK compatible spot colors. The designer knows this and uses Pantone 307 C instead to achieve a "better" proof, gets approval then submits the proof and files to the printer. Then one of the following scenarios begins (I've seen each of these actually happen):

Scenario A
Prepress operator stops the work. The order calls for Pantone 300 C and the artwork uses Pantone 307 C. The customer wants this job TOMORROW - sales, CSR, management and the customer become irate that prepress is being difficult.
Scenario B
Prepress operator generates proofs using Pantone 307 C. The color appears way off and the customer is irate - "I don't have time to play games with you idiots not following instruction! This was supposed to be printed tomorrow morning!" Possibly even ink matches have been generated using the wrong ink - perhaps even the wrong ink has been ordered as the CSR or job planner pulled the inks off of the PDF provided.
Scenario C
The job flows all the way through the shop using Pantone 307 C and gets to the customer. The customer is irate... "YOU IDIOTS PRINTED MY JOB WITH THE WRONG INK!"

I could keep going but TGIF!!

 

[monq]

God - I swear I will never use anything that the standard names!!! Especially if I send this to you Chevalier!

 

[Glenn McDowall]

Just to confuse you further, here is a scenario where changing the names of PANTONE colours from the default naming convention in Illustrator would be useful.
If you have a need to convert these colours to cmyk and you have a particular cmyk set of numbers that you need to keep consistent (corporate colour) and you need to put these through quark.
If the naming convention is PANTONE 123 Cxx then Quark imports this colour as PANTONE 123 C but when it comes to output, the Alternate Color Space (for Quark objects) is always Lab and not what's in your Illustrator file.
If further downstream you need to convert to cmyk, you'll have different cmyk results for what is meant to be the same colour.
I think PANTONE 282 Duh is something I could recommend to one of our customers

 

[monq]

Thanks Glenn! Still / I will avoid the "DUh" versioning of Pantones from now onwards... Cheers!

 

[JoeatData]

This is incorrect. The naming of colors is critical. The name is often ALL the printer has. Inconsistent spot color naming has been a prepress challenge forever.

No doubt.

This has led to additional problems. Customers always don't created files in the same PMS(color) or will change the color last minute without changing the file. Other times files will be supplied black only, but the customer wants a PMS color. This also had led to lazy customer service and lazy managers.

I had an experience years back when I was working 2nd shift. We had a hot 3 color job coming in later in the evening. I was to output to film, strip, plate and print the job on press. While going over the details of the job, I asked what PMS colors were used. The Production Manager told me to use what was listed in the Quark doc. His answer scared me and I asked him contact the customer. He wouldn't. I printed exactly what the Quark file said.......PMS 287, PMS 186, PMS 123.

Customer used PMS 123 for his PMS 872 because metallics had trapping/RIP prob's back in the day. Who was at fault? Me! The PM told me I should of known better. The stupid PM was never one to admit to his own mistakes. This could of been solved by a 5 minute phone call but because he was too lazy it was my fault.....in his eyes anyway.

There are times where I have a 4 color process job with a 5th color. I have to ask if there it's suppose to be 4 color process + PMS or to convert the 5th color. I still have managers and customer service ask me what colors are in the supplied files. I relay the info in the file, but I always give them the disclaimer of check and confirm with the customer before printing.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Branding companies are the ones that issue directives they don't understand. I've seen branding manuals with same pantone colour for coated and uncoated, and CMYK "equivalent" that give something completely different to either.

There are serious branding companies (I'm making a diplomatic assumption), but too often they don't like to do, or don't know how to do, the documentation of the brand.

 

[gordo]

Branding companies are the ones that issue directives they don't understand. I've seen branding manuals with same pantone colour for coated and uncoated, and CMYK "equivalent" that give something completely different to either.

There are serious branding companies (I'm making a diplomatic assumption), but too often they don't like to do, or don't know how to do, the documentation of the brand.

It's not the branding companies that are the problem. It is the graphic designers who work for them, either internally or on contract, that don't always know what they are doing.

best, gordo

 

[JoeatData]

It's not the branding companies that are the problem. It is the graphic designers who work for them, either internally or on contract, that don't always know what they are doing.

best, gordo

It was much worse 10 years ago where a designer would use CV, CVC, CU, CVU and this could be within one piece of art or throughout all the links and text. I always found myself backtracking from Quark to Photoshop and Illustrator where this mislabeling/multiple usage by the designer seemed to be more common.

Enfocus Pitstop and most of newer workflow systems have made remapping much easier. Although it isn't fool proof. I will still get jobs that have a PMS that has CV and a CVC. It's fairly rare where I have to track back to the native any more. I do have an occasion depending on the colors where(for example) PMS 347 CV will spread, while PMS 347 CVC will choke.

 

[monq]

I think that for my next job I will convert Pantone 485 C to "Luscious Lovely Red CVCU" to see what happens... I feel curious now!

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

@Gordo thanks for correcting me, even if the "authority" of the branding firm is the implicit authority it is the competency of the designer that is the flaw.

 

[prepressguru]

Why do people have a need or urge to change a standard is beyond me. Just leave it alone!

p

 

[monq]

I inherited a lot of Pantone colours to use in my artwork with modified names / hence my question. So thanks to this post I have renamed everything back to what it should be!

 

[Sherbert]

Why do people have a need or urge to change a standard is beyond me. Just leave it alone!

p

Wise words. Seems all I've been saying to our customers all this week is "its a standard for a reason".

Got some new clients who don't know what a PDF/X is. Output files different each time, sometimes CMYK sometimes CMYK+37 Spots. Oh and these are replacement pages for the same job Fun.

Oh yeah and they're on their high horse because they do loads of print stuff and are based in London. As are 95% of our clientle who get it right most of the time.