Pros of spot colour logos

Cheaper to use
Using spot colours in your logo is generally cheaper in the long run. Spot colour printing usually costs less - the paper requires 1/2 the number of impressions as 4 colour process, and can be printed on a smaller sized press.

Colour accuracy
While generally speaking, spot colour boast exacting colour accuracy, there are some exceptions, the most notable being that some colours will vary significantly when printed on coated and uncoated paper stocks. If colour matching is critical, you may have to set up two press runs, using two sets of inks - coated and uncoated - that have been adjusted to match. This is particularly significant in the printing of stationery, where many people opt for glossy stock for business cards while their letterhead is always printed on matte paper. This is not the case with all colours, and when it is true, some colours shift more than others. There's a couple of workarounds for this issue - convert everything to 4 colour process, or use matte business cards as well. Unfortunately, not all spot colours translate 100% accurately in 4 colour process colours.

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Cons of spot colour logos

Requires a Vector Based version of your logo
While not exactly a 'con' and this shouldn't be an issue as long as you have all the correct formats of your logo accessible to your printer or designer. This does become a very big 'con' if you don't have a vector version of your logo available and want to print something as spot colour. In that case, you'll have to have a Vector based version created using a process we refer to as logo repair. While not terribly expensive (see here for our logo repair pricing) it's an additional step that's not necessary if your designer created your logo in vector in the first place.

If you only have access to a bitmap based format, and your logo appears to contain only two colours, upon closer inspection you'll see that the image requires thousands of colours to reproduce correctly. In order to reproduce ALL those colours, you'll need to use 4 colour process printing whereas if you had access to a spot colour vector version, you could utilize the more economical two colour approach. If you're using a bit map version of your logo, you also have to make sure that it's in high enough resolution.

Online Printer Compatibility
Many online and discount printers set up their client's work as gang runs - printing a large number of business cards, letterheads and/or brochures on the same sheet and cutting them into individual pieces once the print run is completed. By default, these runs have to be CMYK and your spot colour artwork may not be compatible with their setup. If that's the case, you'll have to convert your logo artwork into 4 colour process - not generally a problem as long as you have a vector version of your artwork handy. Keep in mind that some spot colours do not translate into CMYK, and there may be slight colour shifting.

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Colour conversion issues

While it's true that spot colours are extremely accurate when it comes to traditional printing, there might be some issues when its comes to converting colours for web based use (RGB colours used in website design and Flash animations of your logo) or for four-colour use in brochures and catalogs. Most spot colours, if approached carefully, can be matched almost exactly. Alas, certain colours will be a 'as close as possible' scenario - and even then we're talking negligible differences that only a trained eye can see.

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