OUGD 504 - Studio Brief 1

Illustrator Workshop:

For this session we are looking into the software 'Illustrator', specifically the use of colour and swatches.

There are two colour modes that are both used for either print or screen; CMYK is used for print whereas RGB is used for screen. We will be focusing on the use of CMYK, which is made up from cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black), as our brief is design for print and so RGB is irrelevant. CMYK colours are often referred to as 'process' colours due to the idea of the printing process. If you were to print with only cyan, magenta and yellow you would not be able to get a proper black, in other terms 100% black, and so the black is applied in order to complete the image.

There are many ways to select colours when working in Illustrator. There is the colour picker in the bottom left hand corner as well as the colour sliders that allow you to choose varying percentages of each colour. The swatches on the right hand side are also a very good method of efficiently applying colour and is the feature that we will be looking at today. Swatches allow you to create your own colours and save them for later use whilst ensuring consistency.

Every new Illustrator document has the default swatch palette which contains the default colours.

We then selected all of the default swatches and deleted them so that we could focus on the swatches that we made. To do this, we simply clicked on the menu and clicked 'Select All Unused' and then deleted. We also changed the way that we viewed the swatches so that it was in list format as opposed to thumbnails. 

We then decided to make a new swatch. In this 'New Swatch' menu, we could alter the sliders to create the colour that we wanted. Once you click 'OK', this colour is then added to the swatches palette. If you make a swatch and then save and quit, when you return to the document the swatches will still be available; they are however exclusive to this document.

We then looked at how we could add colours to the swatches in other ways, like from once we've already used the colour in the design. One way to do this would be selecting the object and then dragging the colour from the bottom left hand side into the swatches panel; or after selecting the object you could click on the 'Colour' icon in the top right hand corner and create a new swatch from there. However, in order to add every colour that you have used is simple. You go on the swatches menu and click 'Add Used Colours'.

You would then end up with icons like these shown above in the swatches panel. The small white triangle in the icon allows you to instantly recognise that these are global colours. In order to make any colour a global colour, you just need to check the box that says 'Global' inside the 'Swatch Options' panel.

Once this has been done, as long as the preview box is checked, you can then edit the colour inside this panel and the colour will change instantly and automatically.

Once you have an object selected, you can then go to the 'Colour' panel in the top right hand corner which allows you to create tints; tints can only be applied to global colours. Once you have the tint that you want, you can then add this to your swatches panel to be used whenever you want.

As you can see here, it is a tint of the colour above which is indicated by the '50%' next to its name.

If you were to then edit the original colour using the 'Swatch Options' you could alter the original colour whilst also changing any tints of this colour in use.

Spot Colours:

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These are solid colours that are not printed using a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, but instead are mixed individually. These colours can be used in order to save money, as you only have to print using one colour, as opposed to the possibility of having to print with up to four colours. It could also increase the cost, if you were to use CMYK and spot colours within the same print. Spot colours are also sometimes used for branding and logo design in order to keep consistency. Another reason that spot colours are sometimes used is in order to achieve colours that you cannot get from mixing CMYK; these could be metallic or fluorescent colours.

The Pantone Colour Reference system is a way of identifying a huge range of spot colours for a range of stocks. It contains all of the information that you would need in order to use the colour on the computer, such as CMYK percentages and codes etc. The printers would have a guide so that they would know how to mix the chosen colour. To access this library whilst on the computer, you would go into the swatch menu and open the swatch library, then look in the 'Colour Books' option. Here, there is a list of all the different types of Pantone guides.

Once you have chosen your Pantone guide, a window opens that contains all of the colours from that selected book.

When viewed as a list, with the finder box checked, you get a window like the one below. Here, you can type in the reference number of the colour you want.

This colour can then be added to your swatches so that you can use it consistently whilst knowing you have the correct colour for printing. However, this system for printing spot colours only works when commercially printing because the printers at university all print using CMYK. When using Pantone colours, you must not change the name of it as the printer looks for these specific names when printing.

There are many indications just from looking at the swatches panel as to whether or not you are using spot colours. The name is different, and the icons all have a small 'spot' incorporated in with them.

Going back to the saving and re-using of swatches, we looked at how we could import our swatches onto other documents and other Adobe software. This first method allows us to reuse our swatches within other Illustrator documents:

 As you can see, it is buried deep within many folders. This save location must not be changed as this is where Illustrator looks to find any saved swatches.

 In order to open these on a new document, you simply go to 'Open Swatch Library' and then 'User Defined'.

This second method allows us to use our swatches within other Adobe software such as Photoshop and InDesign:

You cannot save any swatches that use gradients or patterns, but normal colour swatches can all be transferred. When saving as ASE for other programs, you should save it amongst all of the images and other files so that you can easily find it. This is because the other programs do not know where to look for Illustrator swatches and so you need to look for them manually.

The main points of this session were:

• CMYK colours are often referred to as process colours
• Spot colours are made from separately mixed inks
• Understanding how to use global colours and the swatch palette