Which swatches do you use?

[CES020]

I know that's a really 1) Stupid 2) Simple question, but I'm curious. I understand that it depends on what media it's being printed on or what you'll be doing with it, but one thing I seem to struggle with is coming up with good looking colors for things. When I look at other people's work, I see colors and I say "that's beautiful", then I go looking for it and I can't find it in Pantone Swatches, or various other swatches. I know you can make any color you want, and I understand all that just fine, but I'm still curious at to which swatches you have set as your default and do most of your work in.

Speaking in terms of Illustrator at the moment.


And yes, yes, yes, I understand the real answer is "it depends" Having said that, which swatch do you use as a baseline for most of your work?

 

[Bigdawg]

I build my own mixes from CMYK... but I spent years in high-end 4-color printing, so I can damn near "see" what the color will look like just by the CMYK values...

If you use the pantone swatches... make sure you get a Pantone to CMYK book - some of the color shift is totally unacceptable in CMYK.

 

[rfulford]

I use the Pantone Solid Coated Library for my swatches and a Pantone Color Bridge /coated for my book.

 

[CES020]

For what it's worth, I use the Pantone coated for most of what I do as well. Just thought maybe there was something that worked better or people liked better.

 

[Bigdawg]

What machine are you printing to? Your profile said no wraps or printing...

 

[CES020]

We don't have printer, but we sub them out to various people depending on what it's printed on. Mostly goes to the Epson GS-6000 (I think).

I'm color stupid. I know just enough to be very very dangerous.