The numbers around color

When it comes to printing, color management is an art of precision and mathematical science. 

But the numbers are a little more fluid when it comes to measuring color elsewhere. A brief jog around StackExchange and Google indicates there could be anywhere from 18x10³³ to an infinite number of colors in the Universe. The human eye is estimated to see a pretty wide range of hues – between one and ten million. A computer monitor? It could be 65,000 or 16.8 million colors. Pantone? 1,867 – last we checked, but there’s always a new swatch being unveiled. 

For all the ranges, estimations and guesses about color, you’d think choosing a favorite would be like picking a show on Netflix: an endless odyssey of surfing what may be just too many options. (If a video disappears from our watchlist unnoticed, was it ever really there?) But it turns out humans are actually pretty good at picking their preferred shade, and it’s overwhelmingly consistent worldwide: 
Blue. 

Blue has the record for the most popular Crayola crayon in the U.S., and the most used color on the Internet. And though a study by Hull 2017 UK City of Culture and GF Smith can’t determine if the world’s favorite color is green-blue or blue-green (maybe: teal), it may indicate that – like us Americans – we all have an affinity for the colors of the outdoors – namely bodies of water and forested hills. 
We’re no exception here at Kirkwood. When we kicked off our brand refresh, there was one rule: our color had to stay blue. 
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“Blue has been a part of Kirkwood’s brand for nearly 15 years. In that same time, we’ve grown our business revenues by over 780% when digital printing and digital media were altering the world as we knew it – and when people said print was dead,” says Bob Coppinger, CEO. 

To us, blue was always more than the C in CMYK and the B in RGB for our digital and spot color print runs. It stood for being strong and bold, steadfast and inspired. It represents a connection to our past and a vision for our future. And while we may change with the times, the times aren’t changing our appreciation of color and our love of blue. 

Tell us about what color means to you.