Colour and Colour Printing as Applied to Lithography
A trade handbook in Wyman's Technical Series, written by W. D. Richmond as a companion to his Grammar of Lithography.
What it is
A trade handbook in Wyman's Technical Series, written by W. D. Richmond as a companion to his Grammar of Lithography. Its 26 chapters run from theory to the press room. It opens with colour as light, the blue, red and yellow primaries, a warning to test apprentices for colour blindness, and the law of simultaneous contrast. Nine chapters then go pigment by pigment, giving each one's hue, opacity, permanence and chemistry: chrome yellow turns black in impure air, and yellow should be judged by burning magnesium ribbon, not gaslight. Later chapters cover grinding ink with a muller, how many printings a job needs and in what order, worked through a landscape with children in four stones, driers, tints, Field's and Chevreul's colour harmonies, lightfast pigments for posters and show-cards, window transparencies, varnishing, and the Hoeschotype photo-chromic process.
Why read it now
This is the production logic behind the chromolithographed labels, show-cards and posters in the library, and it explains why they look the way they do. Several rules still hold. Simultaneous contrast is standard vision science, and the advice to put the brightest, purest colour in the smallest area is the accent-colour rule designers still use. Choosing lightfast pigments for anything in strong light matters more under Gulf sun than in London. Testing staff for colour blindness points to a modern duty: do not let hue alone carry a message, since red-green deficiency is common among men. The chapter on harmony also says plainly that clients want novelty over refinement and that the printer's taste is one opinion among many. What has dated: the author's doubt about red, green and violet light primaries is wrong, Field's numeric ratios have no support, and many pigments listed, such as orpiment and emerald green, are toxic. Use: before approving outdoor signage or packaging, ask for the inks' lightfastness ratings and check the design in greyscale.
Passages worth keeping
When any two tints or shades of colour are placed in contact, side by side, the lighter one will appear lighter and the darker one darker, than they really are.
اللونان المتجاوران يغيّر كل منهما مظهر الآخر، فالفاتح يبدو أفتح والداكن يبدو أدكن، ولذلك يُحكم على اللون في سياقه لا منفردًا.
In massing colours the brightest and purest should occupy the smallest spaces, and vice versa.
اللون الساطع يعمل بقوة أكبر حين يشغل مساحة صغيرة، أما المساحات الواسعة فتناسبها الألوان الهادئة.
Among printers it is of immense service in attracting the eye to anything important, and is largely used in almost all chromatic methods of arresting the attention by advertisement.
الأحمر أداة الطابع الأولى لجذب العين إلى المهم، ولهذا يغلب على الإعلانات الملونة، وطباعته نظيفة صلبة دليل على إتقان الصنعة.
Novelty is therefore frequently a greater consideration than artistic excellence
الإعلان يخاطب الجمهور الواسع لا النخبة، فيطلب العميل غالبًا الجديد اللافت قبل الجمال الفني، ويبقى على الطابع أن يضيف إليه شيئًا من الفن.
It must often be the case that the customer's taste differs from that of the printer.
ذوق العميل يختلف كثيرًا عن ذوق المنفذ، فعلى المنفذ أن يقترح بتواضع لا أن يفرض رأيه، لأن جمهور العميل متنوع ورأي المنفذ رأي فرد واحد.
What it teaches best
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