Understanding Color Accuracy: A Practical Guide for Brands

One of the most frequent questions we get is: "Why doesn't my box look exactly like it did on my screen?" Screens use RGB (Red, Green, Blue) light, which is "backlit" and naturally more vibrant than ink. Because every monitor is calibrated differently, your design will look different on an iPhone than it does on a Dell monitor.

Choosing Your System:

• CMYK (Process Colors): This layers Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black dots. It's great for photos, but because it mixes four inks, solid brand colors can shift slightly between batches.
• Pantone (Spot Colors): This uses pre-mixed ink formulas for universal consistency.

Which Pantone colors to use:

• Pantone C (Coated): Use this for coated, white paper base materials like SBS or CCNB.
• Pantone U (Uncoated): Use this for uncoated materials, like white or brown kraft paper.

Stay away from Pantone P (digital printer colors) or Pantone TCX codes (textile colors), as they are not compatible with the offset and lithography printers we use.

To move beyond subjective opinions like "the color looks a bit off", the industry uses a numerical measurement called Delta E (ΔE). Delta E is a mathematical value representing the distance between two colors in a 3D color space.

An industry standard Delta E of 2.0–3.0 is considered acceptable accuracy. For context, a Delta E of 0.62 is a minimal, nearly imperceptible difference, while a 5.0 is the absolute limit most people will notice a mismatch. If a reading approaches 100.0, the colors have become literal opposites, such as pure black vs. pure white.

It's important to remember a critical limitation: a low Delta E does not guarantee colors will look identical to the human eye. Humans are naturally more sensitive to certain frequencies, particularly yellow, meaning visual differences can be noticeable even when technical measurements are "within range."

We recommend using technical and visual methods in conjunction to manage color quality.

Method 1 is Visual Assessment, where colors are placed side-by-side in a controlled light source. While subjective, this accounts for human perception that machines might miss.

Method 2 uses a Color Spectrophotometer, a professional tool (like an X-Rite) that measures LAB values—the numerical coordinates for color.

If you've printed Pantone colors, we strongly recommend comparing the printed output to a physical Pantone book. Relying solely on software-installed values can be risky, as some distinct colors have a Delta E under 2.5 but look very different to the human eye.

A common mistake when comparing colors is comparing a new batch of boxes to the ones you ordered months ago. This leads to "Color Drift." Imagine Order A is slightly "warmer" than the target color, and Order B is slightly "cooler." Both can be technically "accurate" to the target color, but if you compare them to each other, the gap could look huge.

The Solution: Always compare new prints to a physical Pantone guidebook, not a previous order. We suggest printing "color chips" - which are samples of your color on your specific material. Store these in a cool, dark place so they don't fade, and use them as your baseline.

The material or substrate acts as the "base" for your printed colors, and every base material interacts with ink differently. We offer a wide range of materials, such as SBS, CCNB, and kraft, and each absorbs ink uniquely. When printing on kraft paper, colors will appear duller because the brown tone shifts the printed hue. In order to achieve an accurate color on a brown kraft material would require printing an (expensive) white underlayer to act as a primer.

In addition, color accuracy can also be impacted by external factors. Ambient lighting, tool calibration, and even the age of your Pantone guidebook play a role. Physical guides age and yellow over time, and should be replaced every 6–12 months to remain a reliable standard.

Any finish added to your packaging after printing will change the color slightly. Whether you choose matte, glossy, or soft-touch varnish/lamination, the coating shifts how light reflects off the ink.

Delta E should always be measured after the finish is applied. For finishes like soft-touch, visual assessment must take priority over machine readings. The velvety texture of the soft-touch finish can interfere with light sensors, often creating technical discrepancies that don't match what the eye sees.

Understanding the mechanics of a printing press is vital for complex designs. Most high-end commercial presses have 6 ink "towers" (slots). Typically, 4 towers are dedicated to CMYK, leaving 2 towers for Pantone spot colors. This allows for consistent brand colors alongside full-color imagery.

As an example, if a design requires the use of 8 Pantone colors, the process becomes more complex. Production must run through the print presses twice - once for the first set of colors and again for the second. This not only doubles the production time and significantly increases costs, it also increases the risk of "misalignment" as the paper passes through the press a second time. To retain flexibility and manage costs, we suggest brands limit themselves to 1–2 primary Pantone colors at most, while reserving the remaining 4 ink towers for CMYK if there are other colors to be printed.

Small text or thin lines (e.g. light gray text on a dark background) can be difficult to reproduce accurately in CMYK. This is due to the way ink dots are distributed on the material.

Because CMYK creates colors by mixing dots of four different inks, the press cannot always distribute all four dots evenly in a tiny space. This often results in a "yellowish" tinge or a blurry appearance because one of the ink colors didn't land perfectly within that microscopic area. To ensure sharpness, we recommend:

• Using a Pantone spot color for critical small text (which will use up one ink tower).
• Increasing the font size or using a bolder font weight to increase the area of ink distribution.
• Using white "knockout" text (where the text is actually the unprinted paper showing through) on a solid background.

Before committing to a full production run, we offer several types of samples so that you can verify your designs and colors:

• Print Proof: A flat print on proofing paper in CMYK only. Excellent for checking layout and text and shows color close to the production outcome, but not intended for final color matching.
• Press Proof: The gold standard for color. We use the actual production press, material, and inks (CMYK/Pantone) to show you exactly how the final product will look.
• Pre-Production Sample: A 1:1 production-grade box. This is the most expensive sample type as we're effectively going into production for a single unit.

Realistic Expectations

Printing is a physical process that is influenced by chemistry and environment. While we strive to keep your colors consistent, zero visual difference between batches or identical appearance under every possible lighting condition cannot be guaranteed. However, by following these standards, you can ensure your packaging looks world-class with colors as reliably accurate as possible.