The importance of your Pantone colour

Most small businesses don’t know why they need to know their Pantone colour. Many don’t know what that means.  Let me explain something very important that would create a uniform image for your company.

What is Pantone?

FORMULA GUIDE Solid Coated & Solid Uncoate – Picture from Pantone.com

Pantone is a colour matching system used by designers and printers. It was originally created in 1962 by Lawrence Herbert while he was working for a commercial printing company. The system allows printers and designers to colour match specific colors. The company produces Colour guides that contain a large number of small rectangular sheets. Each sheet has on one side a series of related colours swatches and underneath each colour the CMYK or RBG composition.

CMYK is a method of printing any colour using only 4 colour inks – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.

RBG is the system used only 3 colours (red, blue and green) and is mainly used in digital images (cameras, scanners, computers, etc.)

Knowing your logo’s Pantone colour

The image of the company is very important, as you know, and keeping its consistency would produce a confident feeling in your customers. Brand consistency is important and so is having consistency in design. This uniform image not only helps to remember the company but also create goodwill.

Once you have your Pantone colour, save it! You would pass that information out every time you would print your logo. With promotional products, is very common to use Pantone Match. This extra charge guarantees that your logo would be printed in the specific colour or colours that are present in your logo.

It is important to know that sometimes, depending on the material you print on, the colours may have small variations. The Pantone colour guides are created for printing on paper.

Know your Pantone colour and use it every time you create piece where your logo is used. A well manage Brand is important, no matter how big or small your business is.

5 Business Books

5 books you need to read for your business

I love to read. Unfortunately I don’t have too much time to read, between my kids, work and the house. If you’re a Mom, you know what I mean. So in January 2012 I decided I need to go back to my books, my time and my passion. I cut out TV and I found time to read!

Now that I’m back on track, I want to share the best 5 Business books I read during 2012. I found each one very useful either for my business or my personal life. I usually prefer a mix; so I may read business, jump to romance, read some for self-improvement, and so on. Sometimes you can find me reading 2 books at the same time. So here are the 5 books I recommend you read for your business and for you.

1-      Guerilla Marketing for Free – Jay Conrad Levinson: Super easy to read. You would find tons of ideas. Just select a few that you would like to implement this year.

2-      Web Copy that sells – Veloso: If you write blogs, emails, newsletters or web copy, this is a book you must have on your bookshelves. It covers all the digital media, with a lot of examples. I found her tips simple to apply; however she gave so much information that I often go back to re-check the content.

3-      Maximum Achievement – Brian Tracy: I love Brian Tracy! I have read several books by him and I found this one to be one of the best. I would say it’s a business mindset book. A must-read.

4-      Selling to Big Companies – Jill Konrath: Amazing! Loaded with examples and clear instructions on how to prospect to big companies. I would say it is more like a workbook than a book. Many ideas can be applied to medium-size companies. The first time I read this book was in 2009 and I decided to re-read it last summer.

5-      The 4-hour Work Week – Timothy Ferriss: If you’re looking to be more efficient, simplify your life and have more free time, you must read this book. I think I have recommended it to everybody I know. Most of his ideas would work for entrepreneurs, as well as for employees.

I challenge you to read one or two on this list. If you let them, they can make positive changes in your business and you life. Some of those Business books we need to read more than once. Maximum achievement is on my list to re-read this year, a web copy is handy next to my desk and I pull it out several times a year to review some concepts.

Do you have a top-5 books list? Share your list with me. I’m always looking for new books to read and most of the time I get them from Amazon.ca

Keep reading and growing.

Cheers,

Barbara

Color Psychology on Graphic Design

Color Psychology on Graphic Design

Were you wondering What is best color for your logo? Here is the Color Psychology on Graphic Design chart.

Here is a very interesting study that would help you to understand How colors create different reactions on our mind. Each color provoke an emotions, a reaction and affect our mood.

Learn about data visualization tools.

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Cheers,

Barbara