Following on from our recent post regarding spot colour printing, the latest prospectus for Central St Martin under-graduate courses highlights another issue to consider when litho printing spot colours. Namely, what happens when you overprint with fluorescent spot colours?
Most lithographic inks are semi-transparent. However, metallic and fluorescent litho inks are semi-opaque.
You can see the effect this has on the images above where a fluorescent yellow overprints a spot colour red (in the bicycle, for example) . There is a distinct change in the overprinted image. Because yellow is a relatively light colour the change isn’t too extreme. It would be more noticeable if the fluorescent colour was darker, or if a metallic gold or silver ink was used instead.
If you’re thinking of overprinting using spot colour fluorescents or metallics, and you’re based in London, you would be very welcome to come in to Calverts and see some samples.
Prospectus design by Small Fury.
