[CREATE] Open Colour Standard(s) and LGM

[Christoph Schäfer]

Hi all,

At least for those who are interested in commercial printing I have good news.

I have been contacted by a manager of one of largest ink producers of the 
world. The company is currently developing a new colour matching system for 
printing. The system is different from Pantone or Toyo in that it connects 
CMYK values to a particular colour profile (but it also contains alternative 
L*a*b values). They will offer the colour palettes at no charge, probably 
also under an open license, but on the condition that modified palettes be 
distributed only on the condition that any reference to the company or the 
CMS be removed, as changing the values or names would defy the purpose of a 
standard. 

After some back and forth via email, the manager also suggested the creation 
of an Open Colour Standard for printing. He suggested 30--50 base colours, 
which would result in about 1200 tints. The company would participate in an 
open process that will lead to the creation of the standard and then print 
and distribute the colour fans (and the ink, of course) for different 
printing processes.

The major advantage is that the vendor has absolutely no interest in revenue 
from licensing "intellectual property", but is focussed on selling inks and 
printing utilities, like cleaning chemicals or colour fans instead.

Finally, the guy is eager to attend LGM and discuss all the details with us in 
Brussels :)

I invited him to join the #lgm channel and, of course, to subscribe to this 
mailing list.


Cheers,

Christoph