Using Spot Colours in Logo Design?

**DanPierceDesign** · October 19th, 2011, 06:00 AM

I've been learning all about logo design, typography etc in my own time and it was going quite well. Until I was researching what file formats to give to a client, and I saw that for each file type you should provide full colour, spot colour, black & white.

So I looked up spot colours having not heard about them before and I get what they are now. However i'm still confused as to how to use them in the logo design process.

I understand it's complicated (/impossible?) to convert CMYK to spot colours, so when you add colour to your logo designs do you first choose the colours in pantone swatches and then convert to CMYK after for the full colour version? And are you supposed to leave pantone reference numbers for the colours used in the file somewhere, or will the printer know which you've used anyway?

And finally can anyone recommend a pantone swatch book to buy, as I wasn't sure if I was looking at the right books on Amazon.

**Hoosier** · October 19th, 2011, 05:59 PM

how i implement Pantone colors will vary from project to project. it is not a necessity to use them in every project. it very much depends on the applications. if a companies logo is only going to be used on a website then, really no need to pick out a spot color for them.

on the other hand, i have had projects where the client knew what they wanted to use. in one case, yellow. for that particular one, we went with Athletic Gold (cant remember the Pantone number) which is a popular choice that matches many different applications. shirts, hats, wristbands, etc. across lots of manufactures. its also the color most sports teams use if they have yellow in their palette. the Green Bay Packers for example. i then converted the spot color to CMYK and RGB in Illustrator, which was included in the style guide. you can see some of it here: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Quart...Academy/610324

most of the time, i will pick out my colors in RGB and later convert to CMYK if necessary. if i know they need to use a PANTONE color for consistency across mediums/application i will just start there. use the Pantone swatches in Adobe Illustrator from the beginning. from the swatches palette, > open swatch library > color books > pantone coated.

dont try to convert CMYK to spot, do it the other way around or try to match by eye. which is a lot easier if you have real tangible print examples or a pantone book. check their website. once you select a Panton color in Illustrator it will go to your swatches palette. there shouldnt be a need to included the number as it will automatically load in he file.