Can you imagine dreaming in black and white? It is believed by some experts that if you are over 55 and were brought up watching black and white (monochrome) TV then you may have dreamed in black and white and still are.

You can imagine how life would be like without colour, simply dull! Luckily we are aware of what colour is. But are you aware of the CMYK colour model which consists of four colours – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black). This colour model is used in colour printing process to give you the desired colours you require. Each of the colour mixes together on a white paper to portray the desired colour on the printed paper.

Colour is very important in our every day life, whether we use it for printing or filling up or re-manufactured ink cartridges, we need the colours to visually see everything in a different perspective.

All printers, whether it’s a HP, OKI, Dell or Brother Printer uses the CMYK colour model for their ink cartridges. However depending on what type of printing machine you use, some top end printers like the Canon Pro 9500 Pixma Printer supports the use of inks that are specially formulated for printing photographs. And these inks are labelled as Photo Black, Matte Black, Photo Cyan etc. Even though it is better to have a separate ink cartridges for each of the colours e.g. a separate cartridge for black and separate for magenta and so on, it is common to buy a single cartridge that contains the 3 colour mixtures CMY and these ink cartridges are referred to as Tri-colour (3 Colours – CMY).

Why is colour important for everyday life?

Colour is what makes any texts really stand out and differentiate from others. What makes a good website is the theme of the colour being used and how it makes the website engaging as well as trustworthy. Colour in logos brings out brand awareness and establishes your logo so that people become familiar with them. Only seeing a monochrome logo or website can be daunting and not very interesting.

But it’s not just about the visuals. Colours can also affect your other senses and play with your emotions. In school days you probably have learnt that Red is described as anger or alarming colour, Blue is portrayed as cold etc. Even in road traffic signs you will see the type of colours used to warn pedestrians and drivers e.g. red means stop and green means go.

There are so many psychological meaning behind colours and well known brands have picked up on this and started incorporating this finding into their brand logos. This useful image below tells us the meaning behind colour and the brands that are using these colours.

Here is a nice chart for CMYK colours and what they can mean;

Cyan- emotionally Cyan colour can refer to relaxation, calmness, and loneliness.

Magenta- psychologically Magenta colour can show emotions of love, romance, fighting, blood, and royalty.

Yellow- this Yellow colour portrays lively, energetic, happiness, excitement, flowers, and summer.

Black- the Black colour is synonyms to wealth, power, sadness, depression, fear, death, and mourning.

So next time when your printing your artwork from your Canon or Epson printer you might want to rethink before you print about the type of colours you have used and change it since you will have a better understanding of what they mean.

Remember: Need Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black Ink or Toner for your Printer – Think Ink‘N‘TonerUK

Yours sincerely;

Toni B