What you print is important, as we say. It brings your ideas to life. And life is better in vivid hues. Therefore, printing documents in colour can significantly amplify your marketing and sales. Even more: colour printing expresses your brand and the values behind it. Here are some colour printing best practices that will ensure you keep bringing your ideas to life in the best possible colour.
Paper Quality
Not all paper is created equal. Lower quality paper may cause dullness of colour or bleed on documents. You can count on regular copier paper being inferior in quality, so it should be avoided for colour documents. Bond paper with cotton fibres or paper with ribbed, linen, or eggshell are also questionable for colour printing. On the other hand, not all recycled paper is of inferior quality.
Printer Settings
The default printer settings are no one’s fault, except yours if you expect them to work precisely with the colour printing need of your office.
As an illustration, you can quickly increase the print resolution to maximum dpi option in the print dialog screen. Furthermore, some printers need to be changed to a CMYK colour mode in order to optimise colour printing. How you change this setting depends on the printer software, but a mere Google search will yield quick results.
While we’re on the topic of settings, make sure your computer monitor’s colour settings are calibrated to your printer settings (or at least are set to the highest quality). This ensures you don’t have a continual discrepancy between what you see on the screen and the colour document that comes out of your printing device.
Printer cartridge quality
Like your printer paper, ink and toner vary in quality. This also means the quality of your colour printing could be compromised.
Does this mean you should only trust name-brand ink and toner (or OEM as it’s called in the industry)? Not at all – especially in a time when technology makes re-manufactured cartridges more reliable. As with any product, though, always do your homework.
Go for the inkjet
Inkjet printers are better suited for printing colour documents, high-quality photos, or anything requiring tonal depth or brilliance. Toner technology (dry powder) that powers laser printer cartridge doesn’t match inkjet technology (wet ink) when it comes to colour or photo printing. Mind you, laser printers tend to last longer and are more economical in the long run. Nevertheless, there is nothing wrong with the graphics or marketing arm of your business having an inkjet printer tucked away for superior printed materials.
Make colours work for you
Riding your printer to an early death or wasting materials is not good for business (or the environment). What you print is important, indeed, but you should make every print count. Color matters a lot by these statistics:
- Ninety-two percent of people believe colour presents an image of impressive quality
- Ninety percent feel colour can assist in attracting new customers
- Eighty-three percent believe colour makes them appear more successful
Using colour in the right context is essential. Here are some tips to help you before the next time you print a colour document for a customer:
Red: Gets reader attention and urges them to act. Exudes warmth, love, anger, danger, boldness, excitement, speed, and other extroverted emotions
Orange: Expresses extroverted feelings that also include warmth, cheerfulness, low cost, affordability, enthusiasm, and creativity.
Yellow: An attention-grabbing hue that communicates comfort, liveliness, hunger, optimism, happiness, and energy.
Pink: Says femininity (in the West) and is popular with younger children; evokes feelings of love, caring, and nurture.
Green: An environmental colour that can as well convey durability, reliability, luxuriousness, optimism, well-being, springtime, safety, honesty, harmony, and freshness.
Blue: No surprise that this colour communicates peace, professionalism, loyalty, reliability, honour, and trust. But it also conveys coldness, winter, depth, stability, and professionalism.
Purple: Expresses power, royalty, nobility, elegance, luxury, and sophistication.
Brown: This is a wholesome colour that symbolises confidence, relaxation, reassurance, nature, and durability.
What you print is important. Making sure colour is printed right can literally change the reality of your business and customers.
Looking for a provider that can assist you with getting the printer or copier that will give you those documents to bring your ideas to life? Contact your nearest Cartridge World store.
