PRINT WORKSHOP NOTES// Illustrator

When designing for print work in CMYK.

CYMK is also known as 'Process colours'.

Use the swatches palate to consistently apply the same colour throughout artwork and documents. This will not work if you have to use the colour picker every time.

You can use the 'select all unused' option to quickly delete all of the colours you are not using on an artboard. Leaving only the colour in use already on the artboard.

For fine control of CMYK you can use the percentages sliders.

Use the options to select create new swatch to add a new swatch to the palate. You can name the colours colloquially but it would be better to leave the names as percentages. 

Change the swatch view by right clicking on the swatch panel. You can view information about the swatches here too.

You can apply colour to artwork as you create it and use these colours as a 'live' colour palate.

You can set up a swatch palate by selecting the 'select swatch used' option. The  new palate will contain all of the colours in your artboard. 

In swatch options menu the word 'GLOBAL' applies to the colour of all colours on the artboard. For example a global colour being edited will result in all examples of that colour on the artboard being edited also.

You can enter 'Tints' to the swatch palate. This will help if you want to make an artwork with one colour/ monochrome artwork.

Spot colour printing is a print method where a specific coloured ink is applied to the page rather than mixing CMYK. This advantage is the CMYK range is limited, extra colours can be printed.

When choosing colours remember to consider print costs. Chose Monochrome or two colours to reduce costs. Another advantaged of spot colours is that ink can be pre-mixed and only one plate will be used.

Specifying spot colours with pantone allows for printers all over the world to use universal colour swatches. Branding finds this specifically important.

Swatch palates (like pantone swatches) can be selected from the swatches menu!

With the pantone swatches you can search for industry specific colours and use them in your artwork.

Save swatch as ASE (adobe swatch exchange) to export swatches to InDesign or Photoshop.





There seems to be an issue in CS6 were the tints of the swatches are not transferred...

MUY BUENO!