color names

March 28, 2006 7:24 AM

I would like to know the specific names of 1) the greenish background color and 2) the reddish letters used for the company title (after the flash) used on this website. I would like to use these colors for business cards. Also, any suggestions for companies that could print business cards w/ these colors at a reasonable price would be helpful. Thanks.
posted by slow, man to computers & internet (17 comments total)

Are you talking about Metafilter? Or AskMetafilter? Or something else entirely? Apologies, but I'm a little confused.
posted by malusmoriendumest at 7:26 AM on March 28, 2006

I think you forgot the link.
posted by pracowity at 7:27 AM on March 28, 2006

Whoops. Tiny oversight. The website is here.
posted by slow, man at 7:27 AM on March 28, 2006

This green?
posted by box at 7:31 AM on March 28, 2006

Yeah, that looks very similar, box. Do you think the color has a name like housepaints often do? Interesting site you linked to also.
posted by slow, man at 7:38 AM on March 28, 2006

That site's background is actually a number of shades of green.

Get ColorZilla for Firefox and take your pick:

posted by DrJohnEvans at 7:38 AM on March 28, 2006

wow, very helpful, DrJohn. Thanks. Any idea on the red/orange color?
posted by slow, man at 7:40 AM on March 28, 2006

I'm not positive about this, but I would guess that your business-card printer would prefer the hex/RGB/Pantone color name to the paint-store name, since the paint-store names are so often ambiguous.

ColorZilla will also help you find the color of the reddish letters. They're inside an animated .gif, so you'll probably need either a color-picking tool (like ColorZilla) or an image-manipulation program (Irfanview ought to be able to handle it, and it's free) (where with the green, on the other hand, one could just look at the page source).
posted by box at 7:53 AM on March 28, 2006

I would guess that your business-card printer would prefer the hex/RGB/Pantone color name

What you want are the CMYK values. RGB is for screen, not print.
posted by jjg at 7:58 AM on March 28, 2006

Hi box, thanks again. The red letters I'm referring to are actually the ones that say "Lux Mentis" after the animation disappears. Irfanview is interesting, thanks.

Also, any idea where I could have this type of card printed up? Should I look up 'graphic design' in the phone book, or something similar? I'm new at this, so thanks.

On preview, thanks jjg.
posted by slow, man at 8:03 AM on March 28, 2006

As for printing, you could try VistaPrint.

I've never used them myself, so I can't vouch for them. But they did print this card, which is fantastic.
posted by cramer at 8:25 AM on March 28, 2006

The CMYK values for that orange-red are (roughly)
C:7% M:91% Y:100%: K:1%
or hex code DE3A11.

The green averages out to roughly
C:51% M:37% Y:75% K:14%
or hex code 7D8055.

That said, if you're just doing business cards, exact color specifications would be overkill -- precise color matching would be an unnecessary expense. You would likely be better off printing out swatches that look about right to you on your home printer, or just giving your designer or printer that website's url, and saying you would like a color scheme similar to it.

As for getting it printed up: do you have a design already? If so, you don't need a graphic designer, you just need a printer. If not, then who you should call depends on how much money you want to spend, and what you're using the design for: a pro graphic designer is appropriate if you're starting a business or something that needs a logo, a design identity, that you're planning to use for a long time.

If you're just looking for business cards to hand out at sales meetings or something, then you'd be better off going to a decent print shop, who'll probably have a book full of pre-designed business cards for you to choose from; from there you can talk to them about color and what kind of cardstock and so forth.
posted by ook at 8:30 AM on March 28, 2006

Green CMYK: 0,1,17,49
Red CMYK: 0,65,81,13
posted by signal at 8:37 AM on March 28, 2006

Though, YMMW when transferring colors straight from the screen to print. I'd use the CMYK values as a start and pick out the color at the printers using a Pantone flippy book.
posted by signal at 8:37 AM on March 28, 2006

You've all been very helpful-- very much appreciated. Will head down to copy shop with your suggestions in mind. Thanks.
posted by slow, man at 8:40 AM on March 28, 2006

and cramer, that's pretty hilarious.
posted by slow, man at 8:41 AM on March 28, 2006

Actually, I've had good luck with Overnightprints.com. You can get one-sider four-color business cards there for 10 cents a card complete... You'd have to make your own image file, though, but it's not hard to upload that on their Web site and go from there.
posted by Slothrop at 10:21 AM on March 28, 2006