Spent a whole afternoon trying to match a client's exact shade of 'sunset orange'

I was working on a branding project and the client sent a photo of a sunset as their color reference. I figured it would be a quick color pick, but nothing I pulled looked right on screen versus the printed mood board they had. It took me about 4 hours of tweaking CMYK values and printing test swatches to finally get it. Has anyone else had a color matching process just completely blow up their schedule?

2 comments

2 Comments

thomas_miller25d ago

Read an article once that said our eyes see millions more colors than any printer can make. That sunset orange probably has light hitting it in a way ink just can't copy. Makes you want to hand clients a book on color theory sometimes.

pipergonzalez25d ago

What is it about clients and sunsets? They see a color in real life and think it will just pop out of a printer... I had one ask for "stormy sea gray" and it turned into a whole thing with pantone books and sad little test strips. Sometimes I wonder if they know screens and ink are totally different beasts.