Technological Developments — More Changes Reshaping the Industry

The Sun Chemical approach appears to be well-suited for packaging applications where color matching of six or eight colors might be utilized across a variety of substrates printed by different processes. Its limitation is that it is a supplier-specific system, which appears to ignore the ICC device- and supplier-independent color standards developed over the past decade. From a creative designer perspective, the Sun system seems to overlook the fact that packaging design is primarily done in Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and perhaps Quark, while SmartColor iVue uses Adobe PhotoShop software rarely used by package designers. Nevertheless, Sun Chemical’s approach to color specifying has intriguing potential for the packaging designer and printer.