If your not familiar with the new Goe™ System then read this. One of the most frequently asked questions in my Color Control Freak 08 seminar so far is “when will there be a downloadable library for Adobe CS3 Creative Suite applications?” The official answer is, “I don’t know”. The unofficial answer is, download it here.

If you’re running OS 10.x then you may have to use stuffit expander to unzip the installer. After unzipping then just install. The installer will take care of everything else.

However, the library is pretty useless without the PANTONE® Goe™ Guide and it would even be better if you owned the whole package including Goe™ Sticks and Palette Playground.

Thanks everyone in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Portland, and Denver - it’s been great to have such a diverse group of color control freaks, from Textile Colorists to Ink Mixers - Sublimation Printers to Newsprint Pressman we have had everyone wanting to know the latest trends in color psychology, measurement, and workflow.

All design agencies want to see a decent proof. Although soft or on-screen proofing is getting more popular for larger agencies and some agencies are actually even replacing hard proofs with soft proofs, a smaller agency like ours rely on good accurate hard proofs. We believe in proofing from early in the conceptual stage all the way to final press check.

Accomplishing this requires a good system for proofing. We use the HP Designjet Z3100PS and Designjet 130 and 90 to accomplish these tasks. Our designers comp on HP Proofing Matte Paper and print through the EFI Designer Edition RIP starting in the early stages of design. When we need a better proof we use the Semi-Gloss Contract Proofing Paper. So far this has been acceptable, however we are always looking for a better proof.

For those of you who love technical jargon keep reading. For those of you who do not skip this paragraph. I describe our work-flow as “late binding” meaning we design in RGB and soft-proof then convert to device CMYK. Say we are designing a direct mail piece that will be printed at Modern Postcard. We download the latest press profiles from the color section of the MP website and install. Of course all of our displays are calibrated and to D65, Gamma 2.2, and 120 CD/M2 and profiled. When we are happy with the soft-proof conversion to CMYK, we convert images in PS then place the tiffs into Illustrator using the Modern Postcard profile as the working space. If we create colors in Illustrator CS3 we create them using the Modern Postcard profile as the working space. When we are ready, we build a PDFX-3 setting the working space as the ‘Output Intent’. We then proof to our Designjet Z3100PS by uploading the PDF into our Embedded Web Server. The results are pretty much what we get when we receive the final printed piece from Modern Postcard.

In-House Proofing is key for our small agency, when we present a comp to a client we make sure the color and content is proofed from the beginning so there are no surprises. Also, this allows the creative team to look at the actual color that the client will most likely experience. This gives everyone confidence in the design process and gives the creative team a tangible product from the initial design. With a good press profile and an in-house proofing system we can do this with ease.