Sixty Second Seminar NEW! Brief discourses on design, color, paper, ink, and more
Color is color, isn’t it?
Humans have remarkable color vision. The average person can distinguish millions of different colors; this ability varies according to age and other factors (including color vision deficiencies).
Reproducing color, either in a photograph, on a printed pages, or on a computer display or television, though, requires a number of compromises. Gamut is a term used to describe a range of colors. The gamut that can be perceived by humans is quite large, but the gamut of reproductions is generally smaller. A well-made photographic print has a wide gamut, a good quality television or computer monitor has a smaller gamut, and most forms of printing have an even smaller gamut.
This shrinking color range is why the color on printed pages often doesn’t match what you see on a computer screen. There are a number of colors a monitor can display well that conventional printing can’t reproduce. (And just to make things interesting, there are some colors that can be reproduced more accurately in print than on a monitor.) Part of the work of designers and printers is making sure color you want is reproduced as accurately—and affordably—as possible.
September 20, 2007
“20 pound bond”: 20 pounds of what?
The weight used to describe paper—the "20 pounds" in 20 pound bond—is a measurement known as basis weight. Basis weight is defined as the weight of one ream (500 sheets) of paper at a particular size (the paper’s basic size). A paper’s basis weight is one of the characteristics that affect how thick, how stiff, and how opaque a paper is, as well as now much it costs.
The basic size for bond is 17×22 inches, so a ream of 20 pound bond in 17×22 inch sheets weighs 20 pounds. That means that, since a 17×22 inch sheet can be cut into 4 letter-size sheets, a standard ream of 8½×11 office bond weighs about 5 pounds.
Different types of paper have different basic sizes, though. The basic size for cover paper, for instance, is 20×26 inches, the basic size for book or text papers is 25×38 inches, and the basic size for bristol and index is 22½×28½. (These different basic sizes came from early paper manufacturing.) Because of these differences, 20 pound bond is approximately equal to 50 pound text, 28 pound cover, or 46 pound index.
Confused yet? We can help.
August 15, 2007
