Blog Layout

All About Color

Carl Shank • September 5, 2022

All About Color. In modern typography and printing, the use of color, once thought too expensive, is now commonplace. Color laser printers are found in many offices, churches and certainly printer shops. Not many people, however, understand the science of color and how we get colored images and scans to the printed page. So, while I am certainly no expert in color technology, here are a few definitions and pointers in color printing.


DPI vs LPI. Let's start at the beginning. Every laser printer has a DPI, or dots per inch, that it places on a sheet of paper. Many older laser printers are rated at least at 300 DPI, with many more today at 600 DPI and above. What is DPI? Dots Per Inch (DPI) is literally a measurement of the maximum number of dots any printer has access to per inch. The dots reference the unit in which all printers and computers are measured, namely, binary code. As such, each dot is either off or on. These dots make up a grid pattern which can only print in black and white. There are no colors or shades of colors (such as grey). The higher the DPI the "smoother" the print looks to the human eye.


LPI, or Lines per Inch, is a measurement of the number of rounded dots that are in an inch. LPI is also known as a screen, and is given its name because each rounded dot has a centre point that’s created in varying sizes. The LPI is directly related to the DPI which is directly related to resolution. Depending on the resolution, one may acquire a picture that seems ‘grainier’ than others – that is, pixilated. For instance, to get a dot that actually appears round rather than square, or pixilated, one must have a DPI of at least 600. A glossy magazine is usually printed with an LPI of 150; as it relates to DPI, which means that the resolution was 2400 DPI or higher. 53 LPI is typical of an office laser. Newspapers are about 90 LPI.


Halftones. We use halftones to print tints. This uniform field of small dots lets paper show through. The more paper that shows through, the lighter the tint. The bigger the spots, the darker the tint. A halftone is measured in lines per inch (LPI). The more lines per inch, the finer the halftone (See Sample Below). To camouflage the rows of spots, a halftone is printed at an angle. If we printed a black halftone at 0 degrees we would see the rows of dots. So printing at an angle tricks our eyes so that we do not realize we are seeing rows and columns of dots at all. Now we are ready to talk about color.


About Color. Color exists as an effect of light. The white light from say the sun is made up of a rainbow of impulses that our brain interprets as colors. All the colors of the rainbow, when added up, make a white light. They are called primary additive colors. (See "All About Color" below.) Computer monitors use three primary colors —Red, Green and Blue—otherwise know as RGB. Since the colors of objects are really white light minus the waves absorbed by the object, they are called primary subtractive colors, otherwise knows as printing colors, or CMYK colors—Cyan, made up of blue and green, Magenta, made up of blue and red, Yellow, made up of red and green. (See "All About Color" below). The K color is actually Black, usually added to give strength and body to a printed picture or image.


Color separations are used for each of the four process colors by a professional lithographic printer. The final result of a color separation is four sheets of film, one for each of the process colors. The films are then used to create the four plates of a process-color printing press.


Going back to halftone angles. Black, the most visible, is printed at a 45 degree angle, Cyan at a 75 degree angle, Magenta at a 15 degree angle, and Yellow at a 0 degree angle. Four halftones are superimposed on each other. To minimize any interference patterns (called "moirés") the halftones are angled 30 degrees apart, yielding a tight, nondistracting compilation. Technological improvements now create microdots that don't use any angles at all. The spots now fall side by side, not atop one another and fit so neatly together that the viewer is unaware spots even exist in their image or photo.

Read More:  Difference Between DPI and LPI | Difference Between http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-dpi-and-lpi/#ixzz7dy33lfNT. I am indebted to Jan V. White as well for his "Understanding Color Separations." See his book, Color For Impact. Also Mix & Match: Designer's Colors, Quarto Publishing, 1990. Also, credit to John McWade, Before & After, Vol 4, No. 2, 1994.


Successful Layout & Design

Sketch & Hand Drawn Lettering

By Carl Shank • January 29, 2025
Sketch & Hand Drawn Lettering. The history of font development includes a wealth of calligraphic fonts and artistically crafted hand drawn typefaces. A number of these lettering fonts have been drawn and submitted by smaller type foundries and entrepreneurs seeking to make their mark in the font world. A casual look at ChatGPT gives some idea as to their source and character. Fonts that mimic pencil drawings often have a hand-sketched, textured, or rough-lined appearance. These fonts are great for artistic projects, children's books, casual branding, or creative typography. The sample fonts below are mostly given for personal use only, use on personal invitations and so forth, but some have been made available for commercial use as well. They demonstrate the wide range of hand drawn fonts available for use and purchase.

Four Old Playful Fancy Fonts

By Carl Shank • January 20, 2025
Four Old Playful Fancy Fonts . CARE Typography is pleased in its historical search for antique inspired fonts to introduce digitized versions of Harper and Mikado, a Gutenberg typeface and Lacrosse. Unlike their modern counterparts, these fonts are display only fanciful fonts of a bygone era in typography. However, they exude a rich history of font development that should not be forgotten in our search for the new, the sleek, the up-to-date in type. They have been developed from the rich typographic heritage of Phillips Old Fashioned Type Book published in 1945 by Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc, in New York. This volume has caught my historic typographic eye for its plethora of ancient font styles and formulations. The Harper446 font is especially playful, with its curly capitals, its specialized "Q" capital and, of course, its flavorful and playful small case lettering, with the raised c, e and o letters and the odd looking "g." This is obviously not a text font, but can uses in artful decorative work. The Mikado231 font does not at all look like the variations of the typeface called "Mikado" in typography history. As that history notes, "Mikado was apparently inspired by Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera of the same name. The show opened in London in March of 1885 and in New York later that same year. According to Nicolete Gray in her classic book on ornamented typefaces, the English foundry of Sir Charles Reed and Son introduced a metal type called “Japanese” also in 1885. She characterized this typeface and other oriental based typefaces as superficial in their foreign influence. Nonetheless it appears that it was later copied by several of the American Wood-type companies. The 1906 Hamilton wood-type specimen catalog shows four versions of this design; one by Hamilton and three by acquired companies. The versions by Wells, and Morgans & Wilcox are called Mikado. The Hamilton and Page versions use model numbers 204 and 156 respectively. It is difficult to determine the specific dates when this particular wood-type was introduced, but the earliest wood-type catalog I could find showing Mikado is the 1888 Page catalog. Our sample “WINTER” is a 15 line unstamped type most similar to the Hamilton version. Incidentally, another English foundry, Miller and Richard introduced a metal typeface in 1887, also named Mikado. That typeface is totally different than the one presented here." (https://www.printmuseum.org/wood-type-mikado). This Mikado adaptation has straight angular E, F, G, K, T and even raised W, X, Y in the capitals. Note the falling stems of C, L, and lower c, e, h, m and n. Again, this playful font can be used sparingly in advertisement copy and flavorful playbills. The Gutenberg700 font is again from the Phillips book samples. Note the dotted C, U, V, small g and zero. The ampersand is also interesting. Curly serifs are used in A, J, L, S. The numerals are classic old school numerals. This Gutenberg rendering is unlike any classic Gutenberg typeface that has been presented. The LacrossePhillips font has a cute left hanging serif on the capitals. It is a bold faced font, both in the upper and lower case. It is a full font offering upper and lower case lettering, numerals and other marks. These fonts are available from CARE Typography at care typography.com at NO COST. They are free to purchase and use.
Show More
Share by: