Tag: color

Pantone Color of the Year: I’m seeing green

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Well, we didn’t make a correct prediction back in this post but we were happy to see emerald as the new pantone color of the year. Hey, at least it’s in the same color family as mint, that counts for something, right?

image source pantone.com

image source pantone.com

Emerald is such a bold, rich, beautiful color that pairs well with almost anything. Use it as a statement color or combine it with warm oranges or a royal blue for a contrast–I can already imagine the possibilities. You can change the atmosphere of your outfit, event, stationery, etc by just changing your accent color. Having a fall wedding, try burnt orange, golden yellow, and emerald. Going out for a night on the town? Pair your little black dress with an emerald ring, necklace, or clutch. Having a baby boy? Accessorize his nursery with emerald and teal…LOVE it.

And as much as I do love pantone’s color choice of emerald, mint is still a hot trend for 2013. Check out this pinterest page filled with all things mint. I like to think of it as the softer, more subtle, little brother of emerald. Are you thinking of including mint as a wedding color this year? Let us know what you are pairing it with!

Studio Tour: color + mixing ink

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We love color here at StudioTEN15. We mix all of our inks by hand from 14 Pantone base inks. We use the Pantone formula guide to help us target a color family, but depend on our eyes to guide the mixing process toward matching the desired colors.

The Pantone guide swatchbook lists a formula of base colors as a percentage of the overall mix for each Pantone number. We dole out each color onto a mixing board with a palette knife and mix, and mix, and mix to achieve one homogenous and uniform color. Ink goes on the press and printing can begin! But we stay flexible: if the color doesn’t look quite right on the test prints, we aren’t afraid to start the process over again.

Here are a few lessons we’ve learned along the way:

  1. LESS IS MORE. A little pigment goes a LONG way: always mix in more of your base white than you may expect.
  2. START LIGHT, ADD DARK. We try to not mix more ink than we need by adding light to dark (see #1).
  3. RAGS ARE YOUR FIREND. Things can get messy, quickly.
  4. COLORS WILL PRINT LIGHTER. Ink on the mixing board always looks darker than on paper; the press distributes ink in a very thin layer that will appear lighter than the mix.
  5. COMPUTER COLORS ARE NOT EQUAL. this is a tricky but fairly clear dilemma, especially for the digital process of our studio; colored pixels on a screen (lights) look different than printed ink on paper (pigments), and will vary widely depending on the screen or paper; also, see #4.
  6. INK HATES AIR. Store you leftover ink in airtight containers; it’s great to have ink on hand for a quick project or experiment. Plastic tubs work really well & are fairly inexpensive. I want to start tubing our leftover ink to save space, though; my ink drawer is quickly overflowing!