Referencing Color Charts for Heat Printing

If you’re in the apparel decorating business, we would bet you know a bit about colors. You know the difference between Navy Blue and Royal Blue. Of course! But have you ever been with a customer and they asked for “yellow” but what they really meant was “gold”? How can this happen? There’s obviously a difference between the two. Isn’t it apparent to everyone?

Royal Blue vs. Navy Blue? Do you know the difference?       Easy Prints layout QBA-261

I was recently choosing colors to paint my kitchen and my husband couldn’t see a difference between two colors that were very obvious to me. So color is subjective and everyone sees colors differently, which can pose problems if you need to explain to someone a color without seeing what they see. We need to communicate color everyday in our business. So how can we stop this miscommunication from happening?

Several tools are available to help us be more detailed when talking about color.

Pantone® was created to be a universal language for communicating colors. Colors in the Pantone® book are assigned a number, a PMS number which stands for Pantone Matching System®. If two people both have a Pantone® book and looking at the same PMS number, they know exactly the color each other is needing.

PMS numbers are used with all different decorating methods including plastisol ink which is the type of ink used in screen printing, including our screen printed transfers. Plastisol inks can be mixed to any PMS number in the Solid Coated Forumla Guide. We offer over 72 stock colors available to choose from or you can get a Color Match of a specific PMS Coated number.

The Easy Prints® Color Selector with actual plastisol ink printed stock colors.

Another useful tool when ordering screen printed transfers is the Color Selector. The Color Selector is a screen printed fan book of the available stock colors Transfer Express offers. This isn’t a book of “representation” but an actual plastisol ink printed chart of each color offered. So there’s no question that the color you see in the Color Selector is exactly the ink color you will receive on your screen printed transfer.

So why do you need a Color Selector and not just look at the Easy Prints® colors online? Well computer monitors are calibrated differently. Ever been to buy a TV and they look like they all have variations of color? This is why using a Color Selector is very helpful. You know for a fact that each party is looking at the same color.

With either of these tools, you will be able to confidently communicate colors with your customer and your suppliers.