Color  

In this guest post, author Daniel Harris examines the fine techniques of color matching that are used in nearly every product manufactured today.  With plastic parts and metal parts requiring seamless design integration in final assembly, color matching is essential to industrial design and manufacturing.

W e’ve all thrown up our hands in frustration with a cry of “close enough!” Sometimes it really is close enough like when you substitute Greek yogurt for sour cream or just use duct tape when that last screw is missing.

But when it comes to production even the smallest mistake can potentially cost millions of dollars. Mistakes with color can easily happen, especially if parts are being manufactured in different plants. Everyone perceives color differently based on mood, age, health, and a host of other factors. When it comes to production, here are some of the biggest factors when it comes to choosing and matching color.

• Light Source: Light changes the most underneath different lighting which is too be expected since color is simply a reflection and absorption of light waves. Different lighting has different spectrums and materials will latterly reflect the changes by being a different color. Imagine you’re designing a sports jersey for a large college or professional football team. The fabric looks great in your studio, but underneath the halogen lights something is off. Products need be tested underneath an agreed upon light source for consistent results.  

• Different Materials: Car manufacturers deal with this all the time. The soft grey on the hard plastic dash needs to be the same soft grey as the plush faux leather seats, but the two materials reflect light differently. This means a different solution is needed for each material to get the same result.

• Different Surfaces: Even though you may have the same material, the material can have different surface textures and finishes. A rough texture will not look as bright as a smooth texture just like gloss will appear much brighter than matte.

Translating Desired Colors

In today’s flat world we often find ourselves conducting business with people around the globe who do not share the same system for measurement or language for that matter. This is why the CIE (Commission Internationale de I’Eclairage, International Commission on Illumination as it’s known in English) was founded in 1913. In 1931 the group established an international scale for color specifications which is known as the CIE 1931 XYZ color space. The CIE color space is mathematically defined and it is based on the RGB color scale. Since human eyes break down colors into red, green, or blue, the CIE color space gives “true” color, or tells the color as the human eye sees it based on lighting.


Measuring CIE

So how is colored measured? The trick is being able to find the colors coordinates on the CIE color space, and communicating that with producers so everything matches up. Spectrophotometers and spectrometers are used to measure the CIE. Depending on the make; spectrophotometers can measure color, gloss, and color/gloss on different textures. These color measuring devices have a wide range of use from chemistry labs to auto manufacturers and their main function is to test for quality control. If everything went correctly in production then the color should be correct, if not then it can be easier to find the fault.

Color is the first thing that people see so it has to be right on the finished product. The human eye can distinguish between 10 million different colors and can pick up on errors easily. So next time you notice a products color think about the effort that went into getting it perfect.

By Daniel Harris

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Author Bio: Daniel Harris is a freelance writer currently working for BYK Additives & Instruments who specializes in color spectrophotometers. In Dan’s time with BYK, he has learned that there is a lot more to color than meets the eye and that his skin color ranges from #FFDFC4 to #E79E6D depending on the time of year and amount of spray tan applied.