Company experts present on the latest trends and technology for managing color and appearance across design, brand management and production.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – X-Rite Incorporated, a global leader in color science and technology, and its subsidiary Pantone LLC, today announced a significant presence at the Color Conference 2018, hosted by Printing Industries of America, January 13 – 16, 2018in San Diego. During the event, X-Rite thought leaders, including Adrian Fernandez, General Manager at Pantone, will share valuable insights on such topics as how to ensure specified colors can actually be achieved in production, the impact of the latest industry standards on printing outcomes, and going beyond color to managing appearance. 

The Color Conference also marks the first time X-Rite’s award-winning Total Appearance Capture (TAC) ecosystem will be presented at a print and packaging event. The TAC ecosystem brings a new level of accuracy and efficiency to the capture, communication and presentation of physical materials in the virtual world. With TAC, product designers can incorporate physically correct, virtual materials into leading design and rendering tools to create photorealistic 3D images for product designs, packaging and marketing materials to accelerate the design, creation and merchandising process.

“X-Rite is pleased to once again be a Platinum sponsor of the Color Conference,” said Fernandez. “Over the past few years, the Printing Industries of America has done an excellent job of broadening the audience for this event, including an increased attendance by brands and designers. We are looking forward to sharing thoughts and information with attendees that will help streamline the color workflow, making color communication more predictable and reliable.”

X-Rite Speakers to Share Expertise

X-Rite color experts will be conducting several sessions during the Color Conference, including:

• Beyond Color: Capturing Appearance Characteristics, Thomas Meeker, 3D Solution Architect, 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, January 14.

In this session, Meeker will discuss how designers, agencies and brand owners can digitize all of the appearance characteristics of a physical sample, not just color but also texture, gloss, special effects and reflection properties. This is especially important for the increasingly complex materials available to designers today – from effect paints used on automotive exteriors to synthetics and meshes used in sportswear. Imagine a scanner that can capture both color and appearance data, and then render that into a physically correct virtual material that can be viewed in a virtual light booth. See what’s on the horizon of print production workflow in this very informative session.

• How Color Specificity Brings About Efficiency, Adrian Fernandez, 1:10 - 2:10 p.m. on Sunday, January 14.

There’s a tug-of-war that often occurs between design (innovation) and production (execution), creating a cycle of miscommunication, rework, and conflict. Creatives want to have more choices for how they bring their designs and colors to life. In production, printers are focused on quality, efficiency, delivery, and cost. The back-and-forth negotiation that occurs between these two groups as a product is finalized can result in significant waste and lost productivity. In this session, attendees will learn ways this potential conflict can be resolved, making it faster, easier, and more cost effective for the design intent to be faithfully executed in production.

• Getting Color Right Before It Goes Wrong, Nick Bazarian, Portfolio Manager, Pantone Digital, 11:40 a.m. - 12:10 p.m. on Monday, January 15.

Color is often the most critical design element for influencing purchasing decisions with consumers. In this talk, Pantone’s Nick Bazarian will discuss and demo a series of tools and applications that give designers and pre-media a new level of insight into the “achievability” of a given color in the earliest stages of the design process. These new tools facilitate easier communication and more realistic expectations between designers and printers/converters, reducing rework, time and cost for everyone.

• What’s New in Standards and Why Should You Care?, Ray Cheydleur, Printing and Imaging Product Portfolio Manager, 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. on Monday

In his role as CGATS Chairman and Chairman of TAG, the primary standards body governing the graphic arts industry, Ray is intimately involved in bringing standards to market, and keeping them updated. In this session, he will cover color standards recently accredited in 2017, including a discussion of where these standards are being implemented and when. He will also discuss the importance of staying current with standards development, where certification is important and how to get certified by various organizations, and answer questions from the audience on this somewhat complex topic.

• Brunch with the Standards Gurus, Tuesday, 9:40 - 10:40 a.m.

Ray Cheydleur will be participating in a lively panel discussion with other industry experts discussing the importance and impact of current and emerging standards.

X-Rite will also have the latest hardware and software on display in the conference exhibit hall, with color experts on hand to conduct demonstrations and answer attendee questions.