Design for Print - Mac induction 1 - Illustrator

The mains focus is colour

when creating a new document one of the choices you can make in the advanced options is the colour

colour mode - CMYK, RGB

CMYK - process colours

what are the different ways we can apply colour to the artwork

shapes - select the shape, apply fill or stroke colour

double click the fill or stroke box to bring up the colour picker and choose your colour ten click ok

the top left on the options bar will show you swatches as well as in the swatches palette down the right hand side of the screen. The swatches are preset.

the third way to apply colour is to use the CMYK colour slider in the top right palette.

which of these methods allows me o consistently apply colour? the quickest and easiest way is to apply the swatches palette.

if you dont want to use the preset swatches you can make your own, First delete the preset swatches.

you can use the palette menu to get rid of all the unused swatches quickly and you should be left with 4 swatches white black stroke and the target, the target is just for print marks as it is a purer and richer black.

registration marks are used to line up the colour layers properly, like using the true grain when screen printing.

if you use the register mark black instead of the standard black then there will be too much ink, as it has 4 layers of ink.

making new swatches - the first way to do it is you use the colour palette to set some ink percentages using the sliders or by typing in the numbers yourself. Then using the menu on the right hand side you can create a new swatch.

you then get a small menu where you can change the percentages again if you need and you can even name your swatch, but its best to leave it as it is.

the next way is to use the swatch menu and select 'new colour swatch' it will bring up the same window as the previous method.

you can change the view of the swatch palette using the menu to show it as a list, this will give you more information on the swatch such as the ink percentages and a symbol indicating the colour mode that the swatch is in.

you can use any of the methods to apply colour and then create swatches of these afterwards in the swatch palette menu by selecting 'add used colours'. the swatches that you have added will have a little grey box next to them in the list view option. the grey square signifies that the swatch is 'global' when the swatch is global and you edit the swatch, it will automatically update every shape or part of your work that is that colour. This can be really useful with complex pieces of work.

you can also create tints of swatches by selecting a swatch then using the colour slider to change the percentage of the tint and then use the menu to 'create new swatch'

SPOT COLOURS

a spot colour is a colour applied using its own printing plate.

where would you use a spot colour? when you need to print something that is outside of the CMYK colour range such as silver, gold or metalic colour or flourescent colour.

spot colours will be used in brand and identity as a corporate colour. Heinz baked beans for example will have the same colour blue on the tin wherever they are being sold in the world.