Managing Color in Adobe CC

Photo by Ricardo Viana on Unsplash

A few months into the job I realized that the PMS color we’d been using was wrong: we were using 165, while the correct, primary brand color in the brand guidelines was 166. My heart skipped a beat.

Fortunately the designers who had come before me had been making the same mistake, so the vast majority of our assets were based off the incorrect color, which, to the untrained eye, was very similar to the correct one (and better suited to the brand in my opinion). But of course, color accuracy is rather important to a brand’s visual identity. I wish I could say this has never happened again, and while that exact scenario hasn’t, I have encountered a number of HEX code mishaps.

This happens more often than you would think.

Although I didn’t think it merited much time investigating why this kept happening, I had my hunches based on a few observations. The first was that many brand guidelines list HEX, RGBA, and PMS colors together in the same PDF page. One could simply copy and paste the HEX code, or manually enter the RGBA or PMS colors, into Adobe and go on their merry way. This assumes that whoever created the brand guidelines has ensured that the numbers match the colors. But humans make mistakes.

Another observation was that many of my colleagues would open up the brand guidelines and use the eyedropper tool to select the color they wanted. For this to work, you need to have the most recent–and accurate–version of the guidelines. I don’t know how but, eventually, the HEX codes just seem to wander under such conditions and you have two designers using two ever-so-slightly different colors.

But enough of me waxing on about how these inconsistencies arise. Here’s how I avoid the problem all together: Libraries. I’ll use my pet project, The Puzzle Swap, as an example. Here are my colors:

Now, I am fairly confident that those HEX codes are right. But I need to be sure that the next time I create an illustration or graphic for my brand, I’m always using the same colors. Since I’m the only person working on the brand, creating a Swatch Library is a good place to start. To do this, open the Swatch panel and select all the fill shapes of the colors you want to add. In the Swatch panel, click the little folder icon at the bottom to create a new color group. Give it a name, make sure “Selected Artwork” is selected, and click “OK.” Your colors are now a new group in the Swatches panel. Woo! If you’d like, you can rename the swatches by switching to the list view and double clicking the item.

Creating a new color group

Your new color group

Renaming the swatches

Next, with the color group selected, click the little books icon in the bottom left. At the top, you’ll have the option to “Save Swatches” and by default they will be placed in your local Adobe CC files. Next time you open a document, you’ll be able to load your swatches from the “User Defined” section at the bottom.

Ok, so, that’s cool. But what if you have a bunch of different designers all working together? Well, if you’re all using Adobe CC, Libraries are going to be your best friend. Unfortunately, adding colors in bulk to Libraries is a bit of a pain (what gives, Adobe?) but it’s worth it in my opinion. There are a few ways to do it, but I usually select a color from the Swatch panel while the Library panel is open and add each swatch manually by clicking on the little plus icon in the lower left.

Adding colors from Swatches to Libraries

Colors in the Library

For the final step, you’ll need to make sure your team has access to your new Library. Click on the three horizontal bars in the top right corner of the Library panel and select “Invite People" which will open the library in a browser. Enter the email addresses for your teammates and they’ll receive an invite. Now, if for some reason you need to change a or add a new color, you can do it in the Library and it will update for everyone else! Assuming they’re not still using the eyedropper tool, of course.

How do you handle color on your team? I’d love to hear about your methods in the comments!