Hello, I've escaped the screen recording into real life,  uh, video for us because I wanna show you some stuff we're  gonna discuss in this video what a spot color is. Okay? Spot colors, pre-mixed colors, okay? And we're gonna look at Pantone specifically  and we'll look at some of the issues  with Pantone in Illustrator. Okay? And some workarounds on how to get that going.

So the first half is discussing what a spot color is,  and then the second half will be how to actually get  that into Illustrator. So some of you might wanna jump ahead,  but it's all interesting, I think,  nerdy color stuff, it's good. Let's jump in. Alright,  so first up, what are the differences? So, um, the term is called a spot color. Okay?

That's the kind of generic term. Uh, Pantone happens to be a company that makes spot colors. There is another like kind of color code here called raw. I use it. This is more for like painting physical things. Pantone generally gets used for printing  and print stuff like packaging,  stationary branding, that sort of stuff.

But there are lots of different companies  that make these spot colors. What is a spot color? A spot color is a premixed in. So if you go to your printer  and you say, Hey, I want you  to print my business card, okay? And you say, I want, uh, you mix up a color in Illustrator,  you say, okay, here's my color  and it's going to commercial print. So we're gonna mix it.

CMYK. So it's a mixture of sign magenta, yellow, and black. Okay? Those four colors will mix it up. The trouble with it though, is if you send it  to a hundred different printers,  let's say 10 printers in your local area,  and you get back all those cards, okay,  they'll all be slightly different, okay? And for big companies, often that's not, uh,  you can't have different colors.

Coca-Cola needs to be that red and it's very specific, okay? You can't be any other kind of red, you can't just mix it  with CMYK because printers are different. They just come out looking different. So what Pantone seed is like, if you pick this color,  if you go through and say, all right, you want this kind  of like lilac color, this purple,  and you say, all right, if you pick, uh, five, six, uh,  7, 6, 7, 6, okay? And you decide that's your color, okay? If you get this printed here in Ireland, in New Zealand,  in America, in India, okay, Pantone will supply your printer  with a pot, okay?

A physical pot of ink that is mixed to an exacting standard. That is that 7, 6, 7, 6. So there's consistency across the world. So that's one great thing about a spot color is  that it's a pre-made ink. Lots of companies do it. Pantone's the most popular  for print, okay?

And it just, it's allows you  to be consistent across lots of things. There is a way of saving money as well  because, uh, a printer okay, will go  through the printing machine and a bit  of paper goes in the front, okay? And then if you're printing this purple, okay, in, so yeah,  if you're printing this purple, um, in CYK it needs five,  four colors to make that work. Okay? So it has to go through a printer that has one thing  of yellow magenta, CMYK, cyan,  magenta, yellow and black. Okay?

Goes through there and gets stamped four times. Big big process to get the purple. Whereas if you only used that purple, okay, out  of the spot color, it would only need one  of those little rollers. You could use a smaller machine, it would be quicker, okay? Less set up and clean up. Okay?

So it goes, the white bit of paper goes through  and just gets the um, purple stamped onto it and that's it. So it can be cheaper, it can be more expensive. Let's say that you want to do some stuff in CYK. So you got an image of me like this frozen, okay? And it's on your business card 'cause that would be awesome. But next to it is the brand color of the purple.

So to make that business card you need, uh, the CMYK  that makes up me, I'm a bit magenta, a bit yellow,  bit black bit, forgetting all the colors,  cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Okay? But also the purple. So now it's gone from four to five. 'cause you want the CYK plus that spot color,  which happens to be Pantone. So now it's a five color job.

So it's more expensive. It could be cheaper as in you use the purple but black. So say your business card is just black text  with your purple logo that has some black bits on it,  then that'd be a two color job. You just need k, which is the black and the spot color. So it can be cheaper and it can be more expensive. But, um, panto is just one company.

Like I use this a lot for, um, this raw color scheme here. This K five, it's just a different company, a different way  of making inks, okay? And if I decided that I really like  this bright color here, okay? Uh, this is oh 3 0 2 4. Okay? And the same thing, okay?

If I went to my printer  and said, normally this would be like I've got a product  that I wanna print, okay? Painted in this color. Generally these are painted inks  and CMYK is a printed, sorry, uh, Pantone is a printed ink. So some industries will use roll a lot when you're getting  things a specific color, okay? But there are more of like, uh, you might have a product  that's painted, okay? And this, uh, pantone's more about print,  but there are other companies, I point this out just  because it feels like Pantone is the only thing.

There are other color companies pantone's the most, um, uh,  kind of, uh, prolific in the print industry. The other thing to know about a spot color is  that notice how neon this is. Okay? We can you kind of see in this thing,  it'd be hard over the camera, but this thing in real life is  quite, uh, nuclear, okay? I couldn't get this in the MYK, just no problem. I, I just couldn't do it.

So let's say  that I didn't have a specific brand color,  but I really wanted this color to get printed, okay? Then I would include a spot color  because let's say it's the cover  for my magazine and I want it to really pop. I want this like super awesome thing. Shiny, you know, this brilliant color. So I don't wanna limit myself just to CMYK. You might need CMYK, okay?

You might need it, um, in the mixture of images  that are on the front cover, but you also add this  for a really vibrant color, okay? So you could use spot colors that way it doesn't have  to be like brand consistency, it can be just like,  I really want a really strong color  and I can't get that through CMYK. So I'm gonna use a spot color, okay? Which might be Pantone, it might be this roll. And you go, that's the kind of explanation about  what the differences are. Let's show you in, uh, illustrator how  to get them going.

Actually quickly before  We get in, I wanna show you, um,  For The logo that I'm about to open now, I've picked  Two colors. I've gone through my  color book  and I'm like, that is the color, um, that I want  to use for one part of the logo. And that color there is the, uh, color that I want to use  for the other part of the logo. So you, you need a color swatch book. It's handy to have these, they're quite expensive. You'll find them online and it's a way of going through  and going, all right, that's the color that I  Want.

And you might kind  Of go through it with the client  and go, that's the, we, we agree that  that's the color we're gonna start using for our spot color. Okay? So, um, and  You work out the number, this one here, the this one. First one  Is uh, 6 9 4. Okay? So I know that's the  Color that I wanna start using.

I'm gonna  Show you now how to get that  Going inside of Illustrator so  that it can get printed exactly that  Color right? If  you wanna play along, uh,  you can open up the spot colors, uh, document. Okay? And we are going to use Pantone, okay? It's the real common thing to use in print. So let's say we need to add a Pantone color.

We wanna pick a Pantone color for both of these two colors  so that it's consistent. And if we're only printing the logo, uh,  we only have to use two spot colors. Now I alluded at the beginning that Adobe  and Pantone at the moment, um,  since 2023 have run into problems in terms of licensing. So you can't actually see them in here. You should be able to go to window check  now 'cause this is in the future. You're in the future you might be able to go  to swatch libraries.

So window swatch libraries go down to uh, color books  and you might see them in here. They're completely gone at the moment for me. These are other companies that make spot colors, okay? You might be using these in your country, okay? And they're ready to go click on them  and there your spot colors often I like to go to this  and go, let's so list view. 'cause you can see the names, okay?

You can type it in here. You might decide that you are using 10 K, okay? And there it is there you can use that color. So I could say you are that color now is my fill. Yeah. So if I sent that to my printer,  they would find the ink called, uh, from the company HKS  and find the 10 K pot, put it in their printer  and print out that part of the logo.

Um, you should be able to do this with Pantone. You can't anymore, but you kind of can. I'll show you the workaround. So, uh,  we don't want those ones. I'm gonna undo that. So I've looked through my Pantone book  and sometimes I do this with a client sometimes on my own  to go, okay, these are the colors that I want.

I've decided that this one at the top here,  we'll do this first, is in my color book. It looks like a 4, 9, 8, 5. I like that color. So I need to go and create it  because what happens is it doesn't really matter  what you write in here, as long  as it's a spot color and you name it, right? They'll go to the shelf  and get the right pot of Pantone color. You can be more official  and get Pantone built into Illustrator.

But there's something called the Pantone Connect app. It's a bit buggy at the moment inside of Illustrator  and it's a paid subscription. So chase that one if you want. Okay? What I, I'll show you what I do is I know what the color is. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start  by going have a look for that color.

So I'm gonna go and there's that color  that I was looking for, I just Google it. I was like, there you go. Pantone this. And there is uh, kind of a hex version of it, okay? Just a representation of it on your screen. 'cause whatever is on your screen, it doesn't really matter.

You could make it green as long as you labeled it this. They would go and find that, okay? You don't want to trick people like that  and that'd be a bit confusing, but let's get it close enough  and then label it, right? So remember that 8 7 4 B five two. So I'm gonna go to my uh, fill. I'm gonna go to either RGB or HSB  'cause what I'm looking for is this.

Who members the number pause,  I'm gonna go get the number, okay? I have to go and uh, write that down  'cause I can't hold that many numbers in my head  for some reason, especially while I'm recording. So that's the number. Okay? Click on it so that there kind of looks like the spot color. But if I sent that to the printer now they'd go  and print that off in CMYK  'cause that's what the document's sent to.

So what I need to do is make this a spot color  so I can do it by let's opening up our fill, okay? And I'm gonna say you create a new swatch. What kind of swatch? Not a process color processes. This the process of mixing Siam, magenta, yellow,  and black gives me this, um, I don't know raisin color. Okay?

And so I want this to be a spot color. I'm gonna give it a name. This is what's really important. You're gonna say this is Pantone 4, 9, 8, 5,  either coated or uncoated. We won't go too much into that here. Okay?

So this is the color, it's a spot color. I can click, okay, there's a little warning that says hey,  we don't have licensing problems, okay? And it doesn't really matter, okay? When I send this to my printer, they're gonna get the file  and they're gonna be able to see  that this is a Pantone color. Let's have a little look at way of like double checking. You're like, have I got it to be a Pantone color?

So have a look. The difference is,  can we look in our swatches panel? Can you see that? Remember the global color had this little  tab down the bottom, but it doesn't have that dot,  that dot means spot color. Can I make these bigger? Wait, there, there you go.

Giant swatches. Let's make a global color. So I'm gonna, you, I'm gonna say I want to swatch,  I'm gonna make this global, but it's a process color. Let's have a look in my swatches panel. Can you see the difference? That is, see  that little tab in the corner, that's a global color.

We've talked about those. A spot color is this pre-mixed in. A pot on a shelf gets used and it has the little.in it. So that's that. I can tell that the other way  to do it is through the separation. So let's go do window and down to separations.

Preview a separation just means, uh,  let's separate the different colors being used. Let's go to overprint preview. And let's see. So there are, there's my pantone color there. That's what the print is gonna see. Then I'm gonna go, okay cool, we need  to go get some 4, 9, 8, 5  or order some depending on how exotic it is.

And I can tell what is using that color  by turning the eyeball on and off. See that no other colors getting mixed in there. Down the bottom here though,  this is made up of a little bit of scion. How much scion, if I take the scion,  let's turn them all off except for cyan. So that kind  of pink color down the bottom here uses a  teeny tiny bit of cyan. Let's turn the scion off and turn magenta on.

I think you gotta have one on at least. So it uses a ton of magenta 'cause it's pink. How much yellow does it use? Turn yellow on. And that teeny tiny bit of yellow. How much black it uses zero black.

Okay, so when this goes through the printer,  this actual logo at the moment is gonna print a little bit  of cyan, lots of magenta, a little bit of yellow, no black  and a chunk of this pantone to do this. So this is where that can be quite expensive. So this is more expensive to make it less expensive. I need to make this one a spot color as well. 'cause then we don't need any of this. Cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

You get the idea. So I'd now go figure out that color. Okay, I'd go in here, figure out what this color,  type this color in and then go  and figure out what the hex number is. Or the same way K version. It doesn't matter. You are just looking for something in your computer  that represents the color  and to make sure that you create a spot color like we did  and name it correctly.

And when you're working with your printer,  make sure you're clear just that this is a spot color job. Don't assume they'll know,  they probably will if they're a commercial printer. If you're sending this to your local copy shop,  they won't know what a Pantone color is. They won't be printing in pantones. They, even if you give them a Pantone color,  they'll just print it in CMYK. So when you go to commercial print,  where you go be really clear about your colors  and what you might even do is get a proof  done, like a physical one.

You might get it printed off  and ask them to send you a proof, okay? And you either go in there and check it out  or they'll uh, mail it over to you so you can check it  and go, yep, these are the colors I want. And then they'll do the big print run depending on the size  of the job, how important the colors are  and how much money you're paying. So yes, Pantone color is no longer baked into Illustrator. You can get the Pantone Connect app. I haven't used it very much.

It's a subscription one  and I don't do enough print stuff to use it. You might have to, but if you're doing kind  of like general Pantone stuff like we are doing here, uh,  you can just make a spot color  and name it the Pantone color. One last thing before you go. Sometimes picking color can be tricky. If you go to Pantone, the company, they have a color  of the year and often the color of the year,  they're pretty amazing. It will drive a lot of the color  that is in the market in terms  of everything like curtains, cushions, print.

Okay? Their color of the year is kind of a, they're a leader  for like, all right, this is, this embodies what we're doing  and you can go in and have a look at the  color read about it. Um, so the site will change by the time you get here,  but have a look for their color of the year  and see what it is, what it means. They've got great like language around it. They'll show you ways of using with other colors. And like the thing is with this, you'd have  to call this one thirteen, ten twenty three.

Okay? That's what you'd call the pantone color. So that the company that's printing it  for you knows the right color. You could use peach fuzz as well. Okay, that might be helpful. But the code is really what they're looking for.

And just make it clear that it is the new Pantone color. 'cause if it's a small copy shop  or small printing, they might not know the color of the year  or at least not have it in stock  and they might have to get it in for your job. Alright, I hope that was helpful. Nerdy spot color, Pantone mix  with Adobe issues, but it's all right. We know how to work around it now. Hopefully I'll come back in the future  and Pantone will just be swatches like they used to be  in the uh, swatches panel.

But for the moment that's the way we do it. Alright, um, I will see you in the next video.