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digital printing coloured card

One of the most popular coloured paper ranges we offer is Colorplan. Colorplan is GF Smith’s most iconic paper range, with 54 ravishing, deeply saturated colour choices. Whether it’s Colorplan business cards, note cards, greeting cards, letterheads, compliment slips or invitations our professional print artisans have crafted it! Very often, potential clients with acute brand awareness or those who desire the printing on their media to match the stock, query about matching a Colorplan stock color with CMYK print. This request is extremely popular on business cards and wedding invitations. At AHC we have the facility to digitally print on Colorplan stocks and then bond (duplex) them back to back, if required, to create thicker media. This technique works well for those seeking a Colorplan business card or invitation with foil stamping or embossing on the front and digital printing on the reverse.

Colorplan colour variations

It is important to remember that the paper-making process is unique. Every time a batch of paper is produced there will be slight variations in colour. These differences are often subtle, but it’s still important to remember this. It’s one of the reasons that the mills do not publish CMYK or pantone references. With this in mind, we have compiled a list of Colorplan stock colors, with the approximate CMYK value equivalent of each colour, which you can use when creating your artwork. Keep in mind that with CMYK process printing, you will need to allow for a 10% colour shift between print runs and different printing presses. Our production team utilises this information all the time when a job requires matching a Colorplan stock color and we do our best to match the colours. If you’re curious about what the CMYK value is for a Colorplan paper color, take a look at the listings below. You can also request a colour proof to be printed as part of your order too, which gives you the ability to sign off on the colour before the main production run.

Colorplan Colour CMYK Values
Adriatic 83 - 45 - 15 - 1
Amethyst 83 - 89 - 39 - 35
Azure Blue 33 - 10 - 0 - 0
Bitter Chocolate 64 - 65 - 74 - 79
Baghdad Brown 64 - 71 - 84 - 61
Burgundy 52 - 84 - 47 - 34
Candy Pink 1 - 26 - 10 - 0
Cobalt 83 - 62 - 32 - 20
Dark Grey 67 - 55 - 44 - 20
Ebony Black 0 - 0 - 0 - 100
Factory Yellow 0 - 0 - 100 - 0
Forest 82 - 41 - 88 - 40
Harvest 29 - 29 - 47 - 11
Imperial Blue 90 - 73 - 46 - 39
Lavender 28 - 28 - 0 - 0
Mandarin 1 - 56 - 84 - 0
Park Green 40 - 0 - 35 - 0
Pistachio 13 - 0 - 25 - 0
Powder Green 23 - 0 - 20 - 0
Purple 79 - 79 - 0 - 0
Real Grey 39 - 26 - 29 - 0
Sapphire 89 - 64 - 22 - 7
Scarlet 31 - 89 - 54 - 26
Sorbet Yellow 1 - 1 - 46 - 0
Tabriz Blue 83 - 16 - 9 - 5
Turquoise 62 - 0 - 18 - 0
Wild Cherry 21 - 93 - 67 - 9
Bright Red 0 - 100 - 100 - 0
Citrine 0 - 20 - 100 - 0
Claret 80 - 100 - 80 - 10
Cool Blue 11 - 3 - 0 - 0
Cool Grey 3 - 3 - 3 - 5
Fuchsia Pink 20 - 80 - 0 - 0
Ice White
Lockwood Green 90 - 40 - 90 - 25
Mid Green 60 - 40 - 70 - 10
Mist
New Blue 50 - 19 - 0 - 20
Nubuck Brown 40 - 50 - 56 - 10
Pale Grey
Racing Green 90 - 60 - 70 - 40
Royal Blue 94 - 94 - 0 - 19
Smoke 20 - 22 - 20 - 50
Stone 6 - 14 - 31 - 6
Vellum White
Vermilion 19 - 100 - 100 - 11
White Frost

Matching print with foil stamping colours

Sometimes, we receive requests to match digital printing to foil stamping colours. An example of this might be; a customer who wants metallic rose gold foil on the front of their design and rose gold digital printing on the reverse. Because foils react to light and change colour, it is harder to match digital printing to foil colours, but we can do this on request. Please reach out to a friendly team member for more information!