When you’re getting something printed, it’s important to know the difference between 4 color process printing and spot color printing. If you look closely at a magazine, you’ll notice that a bunch of little dots make up the picture you’re looking at. Those little dots are made up of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, otherwise known as CMYK.

Spot colors are different in the sense that they do not use CMYK but rather a precise mix of colors to create a spot color. Pantone is by far the most popular spot color manufacturer, they have a set of 14 colors which can be mixed into hundreds of unique colors using the Pantone Matching System or PMS.

It’s important to know that spot colors, because they will always be the same, wherever you decide to print, will always be more expensive than 4 color process printing, that’s the reason magazines and such are printed using 4 color process, because they require so many colors, which is easy to reproduce with 4 color process.

Many companies will use PMS for their logo, as they always want their logo to be the same color, and since a logo usually does not contain more than a couple of colors this is usually fine. Printers vary with the colors they use so unless you do a test run, you’ll never know if the CMYK printing process will produce the exact color you want.

If your logo doesn’t have a lot of color involved, you may want to order business cards or brochures with one or two spot colors, but just keep in mind the more spot colors used, the more expensive the printing project becomes.