Letterpress Color Management

Pantone Matching System

The Pantone Matching System (PMS) has many different books of colors.

For our wedding letterpress cards at Minted, we use Spot Colors selected from Pantone's Solid Uncoated book.

Spot Colors

What is a spot color?

Put simply, spot colors are inks. Most Pantone spot colors are beyond the CMYK gamut, and cannot be accurately replicated on screen. All of the colors in the Solid Uncoated Pantone book that we use for wedding letterpress cards are spot colors.

The maximum number of colors we offer per card is 3. We have developed a letterpress swatch library with 59 Pantone spot colors for our customers to choose from. Customers can customize their cards using this library, however, custom colors (using custom CMYK values) are not offered.

Only use spot colors from the Minted Wedding Letterpress Pantone swatch library
Never use screens, tints, or opacities of spot colors
Letterpress inks are transparent and will multiply when overlapped

Color Separations

Letterpress colors are pressed one at a time. For multi-color files, a new plate is created for each color used in the design. The press, rollers, and inkwell must be cleaned between each color for a clean print. Sometimes this results in shifting, similar to the shifting seen on foil-pressed items.

To ensure our files generate correctly for the printers, be sure that each color is on a separate layer in Illustrator, labeled correctly.

Ink Coverage

Heavy ink coverage (areas larger than 1/2 inch) can be difficult to print evenly. Heavy ink can cause lighter-weight papers to buckle and bulge. When heavy areas of ink are in the same color as something much thinner (like type), the heavy area will often have to be printed on a separate run. This means separate plates would need to be made for both the heavy area of coverage, and for the finer details. Avoid heavy ink coverage when possible.

Be mindful of when heavy coverage is in the same color as thin lines or type.

Blind Deboss

Blind Deboss is a letterpress process where an impression is pressed into the paper without the use of ink.

If the customer's wedding letterpress card is 1 color and the Pantone color choice is Blind Deboss, the QC should let the customer know that the card won't actually be printed in Pantone ink (sometimes customers aren't aware of this).

If the customer meant for the card to be printed in ink, the QC should ask the customer for another Pantone color from our wedding letterpress swatch library instead of Blind Deboss.

Using the Minted Letterpress Pantone Palette

When working on a letterpress design, be sure to use only the approved Minted Wedding Letterpress Pantone swatch library.

Please note that the Wedding Letterpress swatch library is completely separate and different from the swatches used on Photo Letterpress and Luxury Letterpress cards.

You can download the most up-to-date Pantone swatch library on mntd.space under Go-to Downloads. Once you have downloaded the wedding letterpress Pantone library be sure to use the How to: Installing Swatches guide to set your new library to persistent. This will ensure the library is always available when you open Illustrator and save you time when proofing letterpress items.

While Illustrator swatches include color names and spaces, layer names should not. For example, the swatch Merlot is labeled "Merlot - 2041 U" in the swatch library, but if a design uses Merlot, the layer should be labeled "2041U".

What are Pantone Bridge Colors?

Pantone Bridge colors are the CMYK equivalents of Pantone inks. Pantone Bridge swatch libraries are conversion charts created by Pantone. Color bridging is used to select and specify solid Pantone colors, to determine how a Pantone color will appear when reproduced in CMYK. These swatch libraries exist within Illustrator (please note that not every spot color has a CMYK bridge equivalent). The approved Minted Pantone CMYK Bridge swatch library can also be downloaded on mntd.space under Go-to Downloads.

When Do I Use Pantone Bridge Colors?

Use Pantone Bridge colors when a letterpress order contains a non-letterpress card that is meant to match the letterpress item.

Let's look at an example scenario.

In this order, only the first item, the invitation, is letterpress. The reception card, RSVP card, and RSVP envelope are all non-letterpress cards:

The reception and RSVP cards are in a different design than the letterpress invitation, but the customer asked that all cards use the same color of ink.

Since non-letterpress cards do not use Pantone inks, we'll have to use the Bridge color swatch library to make sure they all match.

The wedding letterpress invitation is in Matte Silver, so we'll apply the Matte Silver 877 U swatch from the Wedding Letterpress Pantone library.

For the other non-letterpress cards, we'll use the corresponding swatch from the Wedding Letterpress CMYK (Bridge) color swatch library, which is Matte Silver 877 UP, with CMYK values of 28, 19, 19, 2.

Please note that Pantone swatches have the letter "U" in the name, and CMYK Bridge swatches have the letters "UP".

Associated Orders and Orders with Multiple Printing Types

When working on letterpress wedding proofs, always check for associated orders. If there is an associated order such as a non-letterpress enclosure card, assign it to yourself and match colors by using the Bridge swatch library on the enclosure card. If an order includes both Letterpress and CMYK Bridge colors, or if there is an associated order with CMYK colors, the QC will include the Letterpress & Digital Items In Order note template, so the customer is aware that some color variation may occur.

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