Whether you are producing a company or customer newsletter, direct mailers, even event signage, you will instantly increase attention and retention when you use colour.
Research shows that colour:

• Increases brand recognition by up to 80%
• Improves readership as much as 40%
• Increases comprehension by 73%

When possible, using four-colour makes the most dramatic impact. However, the infusion of a second or third colour takes black and white text and images up a notch, too. Fortunately, a range of cost-effective solutions exists to add “punch” to your printed materials.

Designers often manipulate colour to create interest and variety from a single image. Following are a few terms to help you know your colour options.

• Spot colour – Adding one or more single flat colours to a printed piece. You can
  also create monochromatic (single colour) photos.
• Halftone – A pattern of dots of different sizes used to simulate a continuous-tone
  photograph, either in colour or black and white.
• Duotone – Created by printing a photographic image in two colours. They often possess greater depth and warmth than photos printed in one colour. Most are printed using a hue naturally dark in colour, like black or blue, and a naturally light hue, such as gray or yellow.
• Tritone – A halftone using three colours to produce more contrast and detail than
  a duotone.
• Mezzotint – Computer-generated reproduction of an engraver’s method which creates various textures and patterns to create artistic effects.
• Posterized – The colour palette of an image is manipulated and recreated using only flat colours.
• Traps – Trapping is a term that describes the method used to make two colours fit
  together perfectly without any white gaps between them.
• Screens – Varying the screen percentage can give you the illusion of printing with
  multiple colours. For example, a 50 percent screen of a solid red creates the illusion of pink.

See the pros at Allegra Print & Imaging in Hamilton for creative ideas on adding colour to your next print projects: from business cards, flyers, posters, banners, to trade show displays.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.