SMS - The Color of Anything
Does your brand look the same everywhere?
From your website to your packaging, brochures, vehicle wraps, and signage, your customers expect one brand and one color.
The Spot Matching System (SMS) helps brands, designers, and printers maintain consistent color across print, web, and digital media using a structured color-management workflow.
PRINT WITH CONFIDENCE
Is SMS Right for You?
If you're a brand owner, designer, agency, commercial printer, packaging producer, or large-format graphics provider looking to improve color consistency, streamline production, and protect your brand across every platform, SMS may be exactly what you're looking for.
Common Color Management Challenges
Most brands and print providers face similar obstacles:
-
Website colors don't always match printed materials.
-
Different vendors produce different results.
-
Packaging, signage, and promotional materials vary from one production run to another.
-
Press operators spend valuable time adjusting color on press.
-
Reprints and color corrections increase production costs
A Simpler Path to Consistent Color
Step 1: Define your brand colors
Choose colors from the SMS palette or convert your existing brand colors into SMS colors. SMS colors are delivered in formats that can be used in design applications and across multiple platforms.
Step 2: Convert colors for production
Your colors are converted into the appropriate output spaces for web, offset, digital printing, or extended-gamut production.
Step 3: Verify and control
Using spectrophotometers, ICC profiles, and standardized control strips, printers verify that the final result matches the intended color target. The SMS READY workflow includes verification procedures for all colors within the layout.
SMS - Beyond Traditional Spot Colors
Traditional spot-color systems excel at defining colors for specific printing conditions and specialty inks. SMS takes a different approach by defining colors according to their LAB values, creating a device-independent reference that can be reproduced across multiple substrates and production methods.
Whether your brand appears on packaging, brochures, vehicle graphics, signage, or digital media, SMS provides a common color target that can be adapted to each application.
Build Your Own Brand Color Language
Every brand deserves colors that remain recognizable, regardless of where they appear.
SMS allows companies to establish their own color standard based on measurable LAB values, helping maintain consistency across:
-
Offset printing
-
Digital printing
-
Flexographic packaging
-
Vehicle graphics
-
Signage and large format
-
Websites and social media
Instead of relying on a different interpretation for every production method, your team works from a single color reference.
One Color Reference. Multiple Substrates.
A color printed on coated packaging will behave differently than the same color printed on corrugated board, vinyl, fabric, or uncoated paper.
SMS uses LAB values as the starting point, allowing printers to adapt colors to each substrate while preserving the overall visual intent of the brand.
Combined with ICC profiles, spectrophotometers, and process control, SMS helps production teams reproduce color more consistently across different materials and technologies.
Complementing Traditional Color Systems
Traditional spot-color guides remain essential for specialty inks, metallics, and many established workflows. SMS extends those workflows by introducing a device-independent approach designed for today's cross-media environment.
The goal is not to replace proven color standards, but to help brands maintain greater consistency between print, packaging, digital media, and large-format applications.
SMS helps define color once and reproduce it consistently everywhere.
Find the Right SMS Solution for Your Business
Whether you're introducing SMS for a single brand or implementing it across multiple production environments, we'll help you choose the right combination of palettes, training, certification, and workflow support.