.Anyone who like me works on more than one version of the same site at the same time (at the risk of changing the wrong one accidentally, which has happened to me in the past) may appreciate ChromaTabs It assigns colours to tabs for different sites automatically.

The colour is assigned either based either on the server name (using some mysterious “random” algorithm) which seems to meet my needs, or colours in the favicon.ico, which is not so useful. The default colours are not very aesthetically pleasing but you can tweak them to some extent, and anyway, that’s not really the point.

Extra visual cues like this can help a lot especially when under time pressure and at greater risk of making errors. Simple, yet effective, like many of the best tools.

Colour Matching

I’ve never satisfactorily solved the colour matching problem while working on the print jobs I do every few months or so. A few years back I wrote up some colour tips I’ve learned, but it doesn’t exactly mean I’ve gotten any better at it in the mean time.

Browsing through the local specialty art book store the other day, I came across the Process Color Manual, a colour guide for CMYK that nicely fills a gap in my collection.

[via Dave Shea's mezzoblue]

Lots of web designers find working in print a headache, and it’s delightful to learn that the great Dave Shea is no exception. The problem is that if you handle RGB monitor colours all day long you’re liable to think you know about the subject - until you try creating printwork. And often the tools we’re used to, which are great for on-screen design, prove very poor for managing CMYK colours effectively.

The reasons why are quite technical, but for most purposes this can be treated as a practical problem which Mr Shea has done a great job of explaining in an earlier article. Because none of the colours involved are pure, or to a universal standard, the results of combining them are not absolutely determined. Factor in the vagaries of human colour vision, and it’s no wonder most of us are confused.

I’m currently engaged in a design which is largely grayscale. If I have to transfer that one to print, I’ll be laughing, so maybe there’s the answer: back to monochrome!