Spot matching system

The web version of the Spot Matching System (free of charge at www.spotmatchingsystem.com/services) - or optionally for download here (right click on the image and download it, import to your application and pick any SMS color you want with your eyedropper). This free version was made especially for our brothers in arms at Freiefarbe (www.freiefarbe.de). 

Spot Matching System (SMS) is the most technically advanced color palette in the world,
built to ensure consistency in color for various media for visual side-by-side comparison.

SMS is a brand new approach for designers to select colors for their designs and prepare them for print. 

What you have learned about spot color, what is possible and what is not, is no longer necessarily true...

We want to change the definition of "Spot Color". 
         We want to change the definition of "Brand Color". 
                We want to change the definition of "Close enough".  

The Spot Matching System was launched on December 1st 2018,which happens to be the 100 year anniversary of Icelandic sovereignty from Denmark. 

What we have for you today is: 

A color palette of 470 ISO certified standard SMS CMYK colors for print design. 
Option to create custom SMS colors as close to any brand color as possible on request. 
All SMS colors additionally available for web and TV. 
Perfect consistency in printing of SMS colors according to ISO 12647. 
Absolute consistency in SMS colors between coated and uncoated paper, web and TV.
A unique approach to defining brand colors (SMS Visual Brand Identity Approach).          

Is your printshop ready to print SMS colors?

If your printshop is ready to accept PDF files set up for printing according to Fogra 39, Fogra 47, Fogra 51 or Fogra 52, you can promote yourself as SMS READY see www.spotmatchingsystem.com/technical/smsready. 

If your printshop is ready to accept PDF files set up for printing according to GraCol standards, you may promote yourself as SMS READY (NEW). 

It doesn't matter if you are an offset, flexo, gravure or digital printer! 

SMS colors in design, is a wake up call for printers in all categories to 

Print to Standards!

SMS encourages a more professional mindset and consequently more consistency and accuracy in printing all around - between printers in their category and between printers in different categories. 

This may seem painful while printers are getting the hang of printing to standards but in the long run this will reduce the number of reprints due to mistakes and increase the number of happy customers. 

We will be right here to support this initiative and answer any technical questions printers may have about how they should go about printing to ISO standards and who they should call. No matter where you are in the world, we are able to refer a local specialist who can help get your colors under control. 

The Spot Matching System is in a league of it's own when it comes to defining and selecting colors for brands, for professional printing, web and TV / omnichannel design, - well anywhere where cross-media color consistency is a basic requirement. 

We pledge to work hard to make the SMS experience easier and more user friendly, to give designers more independence and control over their SMS colors and the brand colors of their respective customers. 

In addition we have a few additional breathtaking and disruptive surprises up our sleeve that will help establish SMS as a must-have tool for any designer. We have only just begun! 

YOUR ADVANTAGE

If your printshop is capable of offering printing according to ISO 12647 or is willing to do what is required to do this, SMS is the perfect color palette for you and what you should be recommending to your customers. 

SMS helps keep your presses running since SMS is a CMYK spot color palette so you will not have to worry about washing down your presses. Simply be sure to print according to your ISO standard and our SMS colors will be perfect, everytime! 

When you get a request from a customer asking to which standard you print, you simply need to be ready to reply: Fogra 39, Fogra 51, Fogra 47 or Fogra 52 or optionally GraCol (if you only accept GraCol files). 

Check for SMS colors 

You might want to ask your customers as a rule to make clear which SMS colors they are using and where they are to be found.  If you are lucky, your customers haven't discovered SMS yet. Since SMS colors for print are in CMYK format, they are a part of the layout, so you/your printers need to know where to look for them. That way your printers/press operators can look out for those colors (typically a logo or headline or even background tint). 

Not just for headlines and logos!

To make things worse, in fact it is easy to apply any SMS color to a bitmap image, - for instance digitally dying a piece of clothing in an original SMS color in Photoshop, - say the brand color of the company in question, so it's not just logos and headlines that your printers may have to watch out for anymore but individual colors within images within the layout! 

SMS colors can be derived to dyes for entire collections of clothes, enabling the manufacturers to present their collections in perfectly correct colors in standard CMYK printing, as well as online and on TV. 

This is what CMYK printers in the 21st century need to prepare for. 

SMS layouts - keeping track of color critical SMS colors 

In order to make it easier for designers and printers alike to keep track of SMS colors within CMYK layouts, we provide designers with bitmap versions of SMS colors in TIFF format, - labelled SMS color patches in the correct CMYK halftone on a job-to-job basis, which they can use to create custom SMS colorbars within the layout, big or small. You may of course request the SMS color patches from your customer, if you would like to set up an SMS colorbar by yourself as a convenient aid to your printers during printing. The measurable area of each SMS color cube is 0,7 x 0,55 cm, so any spectral device should be able to read the color. 

An example of what an SMS custom colorbar could look like on a print form. 

If you happen to have the handheld TECHKON SpectroDens device, as an SMS subscriber, we will provide you, free of charge, with the entire SMS color library for taking spot measurements during and after production (otherwise available in our online shop for EUR 99). 

Your customer might also slip you a contract proof containing SMS colors, certified according to ISO 12647-7-2016 for either Fogra 51 (for coated paper) or Fogra 52 (for uncoated paper).

SMS Tickets

SMS spot color ticket

We recommend use of so called SMS color tickets, which are small approx. size A7 tickets containing only the SMS spot colors to be watched during printing. 

Our recommendation to designers are to select bright, white paper/substrate for all SMS jobs to keep their SMS colors as correct as possible and to use ink tints to get an off-white / classic feel to the layout. 

The SMS colors are available for printers that print in accordance with the current ISO 12647-2-2013 and the old ISO 12647-2-2004/AMD 2007 standard. 

Not all colors can be adapted to all paper shades and we prefer consistency between colors within a logo, rather than to try to force one color closer to what it should be but having to leave others behind. That is why we stick to the ISO standard paper shades. 

Fogra 39 and Fogra 47 belong to the older ISO 12647-2 standard and Fogra 51 and Fogra 52 belong to the new ISO 12647-2-2013 standard. 

SMS colors are never in RGB and always in CMYK mode, so you need to be aware that the PDF files you receive from designers that contain SMS CMYK colors / SMS CMYK graphic elements are ready as they are for printing according to the CMYK print standard that you claim to use/accept. 

Be sure to communicate the Fogra standard you require/accept to your customers 

The easiest and clearest way to communicate this to avoid mistakes is to subscribe to SMS and use the SMS READY badge that describes your process. 

For instance:

                or 

You may optionally order a badge with only one Fogra standard, - for instance if you only accept PDF's prepared for printing according to Fogra 39 or Fogra 51 (coated paper). 

CMYK printshops in all categories: 

Print the SMS test form(s) of your choice on your printing press(es) and confirm that you are in fact able to print our SMS colors within a DE2000 of 2 - download test forms here. 

Order your 12 month SMS subscription: EUR 420 / US$ 468 pr. year. 

Order the SMS READY badge for your print standard(s). 

Use your SMS READY badge(s) to promote the Spot Matching System to your customers. 

LIKE smscolor on Facebook (www.facebook.com/smscolor). 

You will be allocated a unique SMS customer ID which should be used when ordering SMS products and services. 

Special offer TODAY

Order a Cherlyn Pantone Formula Scale from Spot-Nordic (see https://www.spot-nordic.com/shop) and receive a free 12 month subscription to SMS (valid for 6 months as of invoice date).

Free shipping worldwide.

Contact sms@spot-nordic.com for more information or refer to www.spotmatchingsystem.com for more information, to subscribe or purchase individual SMS products (posters, color guides etc.).