New SSUR Team Colors Format

[TruColor]

I'm messing around with my Team Colors listings on the SSUR...I think it would be more beneficial to see listings of the colors, with the option to view the color swatches, instead of having to sift through a large .PDF to find what you're looking for.

Let me know what you think...I've started the NBA list...I've still got some formatting issues to work through, and I've only linked a small sample of color swatch .JPEGs, but it should give you a fairly good idea what it will look like:

National Basketball Association Team Colors

[Lee.]

Well, that's certainly a helluva lot easier than digging thru pdfs...

If I may make a small suggestion, maybe have the jpgs open up in a new window, autosizing to the size of the graphic...this is the 21st century, the back button is so passe

[TruColor]

Well, that's certainly a helluva lot easier than digging thru pdfs...

If I may make a small suggestion, maybe have the jpgs open up in a new window, autosizing to the size of the graphic...this is the 21st century, the back button is so passe

Good point...

[Sec19Row53]

Very nice! It's rare that you're looking for every color of a given league, it seems more likely that you're trying to find one specific color for a team. Searches would be much faster this way.

[LMU]

Only suggestion I can make would be to perhaps add the Pantone values for the colors you have info on.

[TruColor]

Only suggestion I can make would be to perhaps add the Pantone values for the colors you have info on.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

I'm WAY too paranoid for that...

[Gothamite]

I like the new layout.

While I'm very grateful for the work you've put in it, I hate pouring though a huge PDF to find one set of team colors. This would greatly aid research.

Cheers!

[HurricaneDavid]

Only suggestion I can make would be to perhaps add the Pantone values for the colors you have info on.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

I'm WAY too paranoid for that...

What about CMYK equivalents?

[tjpskillz34]

I love the new format. I agree that it will make the searches easier...

Looks great!

[TruColor]

Only suggestion I can make would be to perhaps add the Pantone values for the colors you have info on.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

I'm WAY too paranoid for that...

What about CMYK equivalents?

Yeah...that's about as risky as just listing the Pantones...

[BallWonk]

Only suggestion I can make would be to perhaps add the Pantone values for the colors you have info on.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

I'm WAY too paranoid for that...

What about CMYK equivalents?

Yeah...that's about as risky as just listing the Pantones...

Obviously. Folks who want Pantone to give out the Pantone or CMYK colors should first call up their own favorite team and ask, "Say, old chap, do you think you could tell me exactly what Pantone colors you use in your logo? I'm just a curious fan, honest." And see what happens. For extra laughs, try it with a Chinese accent.

Then again, screen calibration is a real issue. If there is no numerical value attached at all, Pantone might as well just offer a text file saying, "The Yankees wear blue and white. Their logo has red, too."

As a compromise, Pantone, what about listing the RGB values of the swatches you create? No two CMYK-RGB conversions ever work out exactly the same anyway, and this will be based on your own setup, but knowing the RGB values of the swatches when you created them will allow users who care to calibrate their own screens so that the swatches appear to them as they appeared to you. It still won't allow for reliable, exact conversion back to process colors or even Pantone values, but it will allow us to see the colors on our screens as they appear on yours.

Alternately, how about including a color table for each team that lists a few common colors and gray shades with their RGB values? Viewers could calibrate to that chart and see the correct team colors, but you wouldn't be listing RGB values for the team colors themselves.

Love the new format, BTW.

[TruColor]

As a compromise, Pantone, what about listing the RGB values of the swatches you create? No two CMYK-RGB conversions ever work out exactly the same anyway, and this will be based on your own setup, but knowing the RGB values of the swatches when you created them will allow users who care to calibrate their own screens so that the swatches appear to them as they appeared to you. It still won't allow for reliable, exact conversion back to process colors or even Pantone values, but it will allow us to see the colors on our screens as they appear on yours.

Alternately, how about including a color table for each team that lists a few common colors and gray shades with their RGB values? Viewers could calibrate to that chart and see the correct team colors, but you wouldn't be listing RGB values for the team colors themselves.

Love the new format, BTW.

See, the RGB values I use aren't some sort of CMYK-RGB conversion. They are calibrated sRGB color space values that Pantone, Inc. provides for their colors. This is why I'm always on my soapbox about how crappy most logos look coming out of Illustrator (at least the older versions) because they use an algorythm to convert from four-color to RGB. And, it's not usually very close. Especially when it comes to Blues and Purples.

I store various color information along with each color - including different color space options. Here's a screen shot from my ColorValues database, that shows everything I track per color (this REALLY shows my geekiness):

PANTONE 194 C (Arizona Cardinals Red)

I can display these colors using Adobe color spaces, EURO color space (they use different CMYK breakdowns), older Pantone, Inc. RGB sets, etc.

No offense, but I'd rather not make all of this too easy for people with bad intentions to figure it all out. Someday, I plan to make all of this information available to those people I trust. A password-protected area where you could get everything you need.

[BallWonk]

See, the RGB values I use aren't some sort of CMYK-RGB conversion.  They are calibrated sRGB color space values that Pantone, Inc. provides for their colors.  This is why I'm always on my soapbox about how crappy most logos look coming out of Illustrator (at least the older versions) because they use an algorythm to convert from four-color to RGB.  And, it's not usually very close.  Especially when it comes to Blues and Purples.

I store various color information along with each color - including different color space options.  Here's a screen shot from my ColorValues database, that shows everything I track per color (this REALLY shows my geekiness):

PANTONE 194 C (Arizona Cardinals Red)

I can display these colors using Adobe color spaces, EURO color space (they use different CMYK breakdowns), older Pantone, Inc. RGB sets, etc.

No offense, but I'd rather not make all of this too easy for people with bad intentions to figure it all out.  Someday, I plan to make all of this information available to those people I trust.  A password-protected area where you could get everything you need.

Figures you'd be all professional about it.

What do you mean blues and purples? I recently did a quick thing for my wife in Illustrator. Forgetting that it was for a web application, I created the new document in CMYK. When I got to preparing the final gif forms of the little thingy I was making, it didn't even make black right when it did the conversion. Went from 0,0,0,100 to something like 18,18,18. Or, in English, from black to gray.

Fortunately, I was only using a total of 6 colors, and this was for a 14x46 pixel image, so it didn't really cost me any time to convert the document to RGB and manually fix all the colors. But sheesh, you'd think Adobe could figure out how to convert black to, you know, black.

I only raised the issue because I remember how lucky I was when I had very specific goals in mind for my fantasy team's logo -- A's green, Dodgers red, and Astros tan -- and the MLB style guides were still online, so I could get precise information for my completely non-evil schemes. Nowadays, I'd have to pick my own colors from my stack of Pantone fans, and I really don't trust me to be picking colors like that. My screen tends to be on the bright side, so without some kind of numerical calibration if I looked at your colors I wouldn't realize that A's green is actually darker than 3289 (almost double the K value!), and then all my fantasy team artwork would be some mutant too-light shade of green and what fun would that be?

[TruColor]

Figures you'd be all professional about it.

What do you mean blues and purples? I recently did a quick thing for my wife in Illustrator. Forgetting that it was for a web application, I created the new document in CMYK. When I got to preparing the final gif forms of the little thingy I was making, it didn't even make black right when it did the conversion. Went from 0,0,0,100 to something like 18,18,18. Or, in English, from black to gray.

Fortunately, I was only using a total of 6 colors, and this was for a 14x46 pixel image, so it didn't really cost me any time to convert the document to RGB and manually fix all the colors. But sheesh, you'd think Adobe could figure out how to convert black to, you know, black.

I only raised the issue because I remember how lucky I was when I had very specific goals in mind for my fantasy team's logo -- A's green, Dodgers red, and Astros tan -- and the MLB style guides were still online, so I could get precise information for my completely non-evil schemes. Nowadays, I'd have to pick my own colors from my stack of Pantone fans, and I really don't trust me to be picking colors like that. My screen tends to be on the bright side, so without some kind of numerical calibration if I looked at your colors I wouldn't realize that A's green is actually darker than 3289 (almost double the K value!), and then all my fantasy team artwork would be some mutant too-light shade of green and what fun would that be?

Well, according to Pantone, Inc., Process Black C (0, 0, 0, 100) is supposed to be 30, 30, 30 in the sRGB color space. These RGBs take in consideration the paper stock and finish - coated, uncoated or matte.

Where I get these RGB values from is a color-picker software product that Pantone produces called Colorist (currently, on version 2.0). It provides RGB255, RGB100 and HTML values for all coated, uncoated and matte paper stocks, and for sRGB, Adobe (1998) color spaces. It also includes web-safe colors. Here's a screen shot:

I put all of this information into my database(s), and that's where I cross-reference these values for the color swatches.

Pantone also produces a similar product called Color Chooser for the Textile libraries (both paper and cotton stock). I've been told that they're also going to redefine the Metallics very soon; there are some new colors, and they are adjusting the RGBs to reflect newer, brighter paper stock. Pastels are a whole other matter...

The point of all of this is that with a properly calibrated monitor - and there are a number of products on the market that will calibrate them for you - these colors will most accurately display on screen, what the colors should look like when printed.

[TruColor]

I took the logo and colors you mentioned and ran three reports for it - each one in a different color space.

Here's one example using the CMYK-RGB conversion inherent in Adobe Illustrator...I'm guessing that this will look fairly close to what you created:

Here's the same color set, only using the sRGB color space (that I use for my Team Colors reports):

And, here's another example, only using the Adobe (1998) color space - I don't quite understand all of this, but this set makes all of the colors look much darker:

I'm still learning all of this myself...

[HurricaneDavid]

Obviously. Folks who want Pantone to give out the Pantone or CMYK colors should first call up their own favorite team and ask, "Say, old chap, do you think you could tell me exactly what Pantone colors you use in your logo? I'm just a curious fan, honest." And see what happens. For extra laughs, try it with a Chinese accent.

So asking for CMYK values is laughable, yet...

As a compromise, Pantone, what about listing the RGB values of the swatches you create?

...asking for RGB values is apparently not. Got it.

Not to be a pain, because I have no need or desire to ever make anything more than a wallpaper or avatar with this information, but I don't understand the difference between posting an image of the official color and posting the official color values themselves.

Pantone, have you defined the intended audience and the intended purpose of your site beyond just "research"?

[rmered]

Looks very good.

Nice layout, and easy to navigate.

Only problem I'd have is not being able to open it in Illustrator and find exact colours when I'm doing competitions or concepts.

But, then, I'm guessing that's the idea, stop people accessing the actual values, so fair enough.

[CC97]

I just wanted to say that you've done an excellent job with these colour databases and the new layout is quite an upgrade over the previous one.

Good work.

[ZBoyer]

I entirely agree with all of the praise posted above me. My home computer is the most ancient relic of all time, and so handling PDFs of more than four pages is a pain. But, the new system makes it so much easier.

Thank you, and good work!

[pcgd]

Interesting note on 'black'...

Different print applications will get different CMYK formula's for black

A billboard (Grand Scale) for example is more along the lines of C 30, M 20, Y 10, K 100, a large scale (Van Wraps, large posters) would be something like C 20 M 10 Y 0 K 100, while regular text printout would have 0 0 0 100 produce the best results.

Don't take my word on those values. I can't remember the exact mixtures but I know there are different ones for different methods of printing. Different printers will also suggest different blacks.

Don't you love color?