Brand Identity : changing color

laurent12 November 2007 · 01:55

Hello,

I’m giving the last touch to a brand identity I’m working on; The logo is set in two colors : a green and a dark grey.

I’ve recently had some issues printing grey texts in CMYK, so I know it’s not really a good idea, but I really like the look of the grey.

I don’t like to oblige the client to always use extra spot colors, so I don’t have a hundred solutions :

#1 forget about the grey, change it for a black.

#2 make a non-constant identity

I mean :
If the job is printed in CMYK, the brand colors are green and black.
If the job is printed in Spot colors (business cards, letterhead, stickers, trucks, whatever) let’s use the grey !

Obviously, my choice goes to #2

what do you think ?

nmerriam12 November 2007 · 02:52

I’m not sure what exactly you’re asking. It’s typical for an identity to be based on Pantone spot colors, and then specify the CMYK mixture to use when spots aren’t available, and then also to specify a completely black and white solution where no color whatsoever is available. I’ve never seen a good corporate identity that tried to be identical in every application, but the good ones are always *consistent*.

I assume when you say you’re having trouble getting gray to print with CMYK, you’re getting a color tint of so