I’m working on someone else’s Illustrator file of a flyer. It is made up of CMYK elements beside this one vector blue box. When I double click the swatch, the color type is Spot Color but the swatch name is a CMYK value.
Is this a Pantone or CMYK?
If it is truely a Pantone, how can I tell which one?
Id try to ask the person that made the file what they were intending before guessing. But If I had to guess, I’d expect it is supposed to be CMYK. Paying for an additional spot color just for a text box doesn’t seem logical.
Without asking the designer, assume there is no good reason to do it. It could actually add an unnecessary plate if you are doing offset.
With digital, depends on the machine rip but most times they don’t recognize unknown spot color names and just print them as CMYK anyway. Wouldn’t hurt to change the radio button.
Check your overprint preview too.
The blue box will print. What shade of blue you will receive? That’s the question. If it’s being printed 4 color process with Pantone Reflex blue item in there - That element will print as purple (More or less). If the CYMK build for that color is 100C - and any magenta value over 62-ish you run the risk of a purple-ish output.
If the job isn’t a color critical job, or the spot color object is trivial/non-critical object, you should be fine.
Can you extract the object and give me a look at it? I may be able to give you a better idea of it’s output.
Thanks Biggs, but not worth the effort. I appreciate your offer.
The only reason I found why people would set up a file this is way is for complicated die lines. The die line would use a CMYK value that contrast from the rest, then switch it to a spot color so that it is on it’s own plate, one that should not print, and finally rename the swatch as dieline.