A hex code is not a print contract

A hex is a viewing note

A six-digit hex, an RGB triplet, or a swatch picked in a design app describes a screen. It does not describe ink on a wrap sheet. Phone brightness, a laptop profile, and a JPEG export all move that colour before it reaches the plant.

Send the hex if that is all you have. Label it as a visual reference. Do not write “match exactly” next to it unless you also name how the match will be judged.

• Hex or RGB: reference for looking, not a press standard.
• Name the panel the colour sits on: lid, spine, base, or carton face.
• Say whether a near CMYK is acceptable.

CMYK is the usual path

CMYK printing is suitable for most colour requirements. If strict colour matching is required, please advise us separately so that we can confirm the appropriate colour-matching method and any additional cost.

That note belongs on the RFQ, not as a promise that every brand red will fall out of process ink. Large solids drift more than small logos. Say which areas are brand-critical.

Heidelberg sheetfed and Kodak CTP at the Longgang plant print the wrap or carton. The contractual object is still a sheet you can hold. Which proof that is — digital file, wet proof, or production sheet — is the colour article already on this site.

Pantone or a physical swatch

A strict brand colour should arrive as a Pantone callout or as a physical swatch we can put next to a sheet. A coated-paper fan and an uncoated kraft wrap will not land on the same place. Name the substrate.

Spot ink is a plate and a cost question. Ask for it on the RFQ. This article does not publish a surcharge or a shade chart.

Last year’s printed box is more useful than a new hex of the same nickname. If you still have the keep-sheet or the wrap, send it.

Foil, film, and board are not hex values

Gold foil, spot UV, soft-touch film, pearlescent wrap, and holographic film will not match a hex. Put them on a finish map: which panel, which process. The foil and UV article on this site is that map. This page only stops the hex from standing in for those processes.

Coloured board and uncoated kraft shift ink. If the design is “white logo on kraft”, say whether that white is ink, foil, or the paper showing through. A hex of white does not choose among those.

What this page will not lock

No Delta-E number, no guaranteed match to a phone photo, and no statement that a catalog picture is a formula you can reorder by colour name. Catalog pinks, navies, and krafts are structure references.

Whether a spot is required, and what it costs on this order, comes back on the quote. Do not treat a sentence on this site as that quote.

What fails when the only colour note is a hex

Write the reference, the match level, and the face. Then point at a proof you will sign.

• “Match this hex exactly” with no Pantone and no swatch: the plant can only aim at CMYK.
• Brand red on a large lid solid, specified as process only: lot drift shows. Say if that is acceptable.
• Gold described as a hex: that is foil or a metallic ink, and it needs a finish line.
• One hex for lid, spine, and base that are actually three colours: split them.
• Signing a screen PDF as the keep-sheet: see the contractual-proof article. This page does not replace it.