Are you designing a piece that has intense black backgrounds or areas of subtle difference in black fill? What color should you use to fill? Glad you asked...
We use many variations of "black" to achieve saturated color or subtle effects.
For example, this postcard above required the charms to stand out from the black background without the halftone dots "filling in" on press. We achieved this by filling the charms with a "rich black" of 60 cyan, 40 magenta, 40 yellow, 100 black while leaving the background 100% black. The end result produces a nice contrast between blacks and is less costly than a hit of spot varnish! A more subtle effect can be produced by reducing the other ink channels.
In other cases of large black fills, we use 100% black + 40% Cyan - giving a nice cooler black that helps "bump up" the black color without ill press roller effects.
Other blacks are possible through the Pantone set... like Black 7 which includes 877 metallic silver in its mix. This color produces an interesting sheen that changes as you angle the piece.
Check back often for more updates, and the NEW Gotham Printing website.
