Ask me about flexo

[peterbrowne]

Hi!
I took grade 10 technological design (flexo + graphic design) and can answer your questions about flexo if you help me figure out mine. At school we were told to always use PMS and not CMYK, but now i've done some work and printers are asking for me to use CMYK. They're also telling me that my files won't open - how do I change a file from Illustrator CS/11 to 8?

Thanks!

[balou]

Hi Peter. Whether you use Pantone spot colors or CMYK depends upon how your piece is being printed. If it's 4 color process only, then you design your piece accordingly. You can still use pantone colors but make sure they are changed to CMYK process rather than spot colors.

As far as getting an Illustrator CS file to version 8 - the first step is to export it as a legacy file. That will get it down to version 10. After that I think you would have to have version 10 to save it down again - someone else can jump in here.

What kind of a printer has only Illustrator version 8? Yikes - there's a red flag!

[peterbrowne]

What kind of a printer has only Illustrator version 8? Yikes - there's a red flag!VistaPrint, and our sign shop uses 9

[printmonger]

Personally, I want to encourage you to find new vendors if, in fact, they are still on Illy 8, which is about 4 versions ago :( A good online printer is www.printing4less.com (http://www.printing4less.com/) or www.printrunner.com (http://www.printrunner.com/); I've used printing4less numerous times for low-budget work, and they have yet to dissapoint!

As far as "... at school we were told to always use PMS and not CMYK", I think you mean Pantone Solids [or spot color] vs. process color. Typically, I use solids for logo/corporate identity design and various collateral that my clients are asking to reproduce in, for example, a brochure or poster. Everything else is then CMYK. If you send artwork to print with 5 or more PMS solids and CMYK, it's going to be very costly, as opposed to 2 PMS solids and the rest in CMYK. In print, PMS just refers to the Pantone Matching System.

About the conversion from Illy CS to Illy 8, balou answered correctly; you need to have older versions to convert down. Again, IMHO, I would not go this route... I would find a vendor that is on top of their game.

Let us know what happens :)

[peterbrowne]

We had been told to use PANTONE Solid Matte and not CMYK because the PMS produces brighter colours. But we found our flexo teacher drinking after school a few times, so we don't really know what he's ever saying.:eek:

In a logo, should I be using CMYK or PANTONE? Sorry for taking this topic off topic.:o

[balou]

When I design a logo in Illustrator, I'll make several versions of the finalized logo. As far as Illustrator versions, I'll make a solid black, grayscale, color with pantone spot colors and color with pantones changed to CMYK Process. How the project (business card/brochure/etc.) will be printed determines which logo I use. If it is being printed with spot colors contained in the logo, I'll use the logo with Pantone spot colors. If it is being printed CMYK process, I'll use the logo that has the Pantones changed to CMYK process. If you're unsure of how to change spot colors to process, search the help menu in illustrator.

[tZ]

You need to logically think this out.

Lets say you need to aplly that logo to several hundreds of fliers and they are in process.

However, you have a logo that is a 2 spot.

So what would you do?

Well, think about it this way, color consistency is branding thoery. Also, it is cheaper to produce a 2 color spot then a 4 color logo. Howver, what if your producing a brouchure and you are trying to reinforce the company identity? Then maybe using a 2 color spot job for the entire design would work over a 4 color job.

So what this all comes down to is consistency. Now back to our origional topic. In order to apply a 2 spot treatment logo to a process flier design we would need to use 6 colors vs. 4(process) on the press. So this is going to increase the price of the job.

However, is that price in create worth consistency? maybe maybe not it depends. Instead you could try to find the closest matches possible for your color in the logo so you can print a process job rather then a 6 color job. Thus, drastically reducing the price since, you don't need to run the designs through the press 2 more times for just additional logo colors.

Hopefully, with my scenerios you can see were I am going without hand feeding you. So the answer to your question is yes create your logos with spots rather then process. You can allways try to "match" your sports for process jobs if need be and you want to save your client the extra molla if they can't afford the branding consistency (additional runs on press).

However, a logo is all about branding. With branding comes many things and one of them is color. The most effective way to create a consistent color is through spot rather then process. Since, process mixes colors and relys on the optical illusion to carry the hue in question. One the otherhand, spot colors are like tubes of paint. They lay down that one color only with no additives mixed on and are therefor, not relient on an illusion to communciate thus making them more "solid" to brand an identity- what a logo is or should me- an identity.

[PrintDriver]

In CS you can export down to v8 directly. No need to get a v10 to do it.
Recheck your exported file. Transparency will be flattened which is not helpful and I'm not sure how well fuzzy drops and glows are supported. Going that far back is always asking for trouble on anything but the most basic Illy file.

Always call your printer BEFORE you start a project to find out what color space/separation method you should be using. Your teacher's advice is questionable depending on context.

For a logo always use Pantone. It's best if you create a use standard specing Coated, uncoated and even paint colors for a logo. The standard also shows layout usage and negative space requirements.