Pantone and spot colours

There are two ways to get colour onto something.

Process colour (CMYK) builds every shade out of four inks, cyan, magenta, yellow and black, printed as tiny overlapping dots. From a distance your eye blends the dots into oranges, greens and skin tones. It's how magazines, leaflets and most full colour printing on paper works.

Spot colour skips the mixing on the page. Each colour in the design is mixed as its own ink before printing, to one exact shade, and printed as a solid area. A logo in navy and orange uses two spot colours: a navy ink and an orange ink.

Screen printing on bags uses spot colours. Each ink has its own screen, so the colours come out solid, bright and crisp, even on textured cotton and jute. It's also why the number of colours matters: "2 spot colour printing" simply means two inks, two screens and two passes through the press. We print 1 to 4 spot colours on one side or both.

Pantone is a numbered library of colours used by designers and printers around the world. Each reference, such as a particular red or blue, has a recipe for mixing that shade of ink, so a printer anywhere can match it. If your brand guidelines list colours like "Pantone 286 C", those are Pantone references.

The letter at the end matters. C means the colour as it looks printed on coated, glossy paper, and U on uncoated paper. The same number can look noticeably different between the two, so send the reference exactly as your guidelines give it. Fashion and textile designers sometimes use Pantone's separate fabric references instead, which end in TCX or TPX. Any of these are fine: just tell us which you have.

You don't need Pantone references to order. Without them, we match the inks to the colours in your file. They are worth sending when your colours must be exact, or when you'll want bags to match other printed items and future reorders.

A Pantone match on a bag is a close match, but it won't look identical to your screen or to a glossy brochure. That's worth knowing before you see your first bag.

• The fabric shows through. Screen printing ink lets a little of the bag's colour through. Natural cotton is a warm cream, so it warms colours slightly; pure white bags keep them cleanest.
• Texture changes the look. Ink on woven cotton, canvas or jute has a softer, more matt finish than ink on smooth paper.
• Screens glow. A monitor lights colours from behind, so bright blues, greens and pinks can look more vivid on screen than any ink can.
• Dark bags need help. Light and bright inks on dark fabric need a white underbase to stay true, which counts as an extra colour. See our guide to printing on dark bags.

If you're matching to printed items you already have, tell us when you order. And if you want to see the fabric first, you can order an unprinted sample of any bag from its page.

Your price depends on the number of inks, so count carefully:

• Black counts, and so does white. Both are inks.
• The bag colour doesn't count. Anything left unprinted is free.
• Tints count. A lighter version of the same colour, such as a pale blue alongside a navy, is usually mixed as its own ink.
• An underbase counts. Light colours on a dark bag need a white layer underneath, which is one more screen.
• Each side is separate. Printing both sides needs screens for each side.

We print up to four spot colours on each side. If your logo has more colours than that, it can often be simplified without losing anything people would notice; our guide to designing for a tote has tips. See how much each colour adds below.