Choosing the Most Suitable Colours to Print on Promotional Items

Nowadays you can print on almost anything. With the numerous printing techniques such as pad printing and screen printing, there are so many options for your logo and company. But not all promotional items are white products. The colours vary immensely which means that the colour you choose to print may not appear as you thought it would.

So how do you know which colours will print well on coloured promotional products?

Let’s first look at the basics of printing colours on non-white surfaces. When choosing a print colour, you must keep in mind that inks or paints can appear slightly transparent. Imagine painting your bedroom wall, one layer of paint is not sufficient especially if your wall was a darker shade to begin with. In this case you would give the wall another coat of paint. In the promotional gifts industry, only one layer is printed. If you printed another layer, there would be an additional cost plus you risk that the print won’t line up exactly.

Now that you grasp the colour concept, what colours would work best? In a nutshell, for best colour accuracy you can print any colour on a white surface. Whenever you print on a non-white surface you will see a shade difference. The colour may then appear one or two shades lighter or darker. Let’s say you have a red logo and you want to print it on black promotional pens. The shade of red that you choose may appear slightly transparent or dirty because the black colour is very dominating. If you wanted a bright red on a black surface, it’s best to choose a red shade with a high percentage of white in it. The white will create a more opaque red shade which will block the black surface from coming through the red colour. The same would suffice for any other colour printed on a black surface.

When you consider other colours for your promotional gifts, such as blue, yellow, red, orange, green and pink, the colour mix becomes a little more complicated. Then you need to revisit your primary school paint mixing days. For example, if you print red on a yellow stress ball, the red colour will appear a shade of orange. Simply because yellow mixed with red gives you an orange shade. As with printing yellow on a blue mug, it appears greenish in colour. Generally it’s best to print black or white on these colour items to ensure that you get better colour accuracy and legibility.

So the next time you purchase promotional items from your marketing consultants, keep in mind how the colours of your logo will appear on the promotional gift that you choose. It could really make a difference to your company logo.