Despite the digital revolution, color communication remains relatively unchanged. Rather than using email or text to communicate color swatches, designers and manufacturers are still printing physical swatches and sending them out by mail. This analog process is time consuming, inefficient, inaccurate, and expensive. So, why do it?
The team at zenColor® studied the issue and came up with a patented solution. All digital color is dependent on the sRGB (Red Green Blue) color space, the native language for all display monitors. sRGB is used to display color on your television monitor, desktop computer, tablet, and smart phone. In fact, you probably spend more time looking at the sRGB color space than the sky these days. Given the popularity of digital devices and digital communication, sRGB is probably the only system that can truthfully be called a global color language. Containing over 16.77 million mapped coordinates, the RGB color space was the perfect system to display color, but was far too vast (and the formulas too complex) to effectively communicate color on digital devices. What was needed was a way to cover the entire gamut in the RGB color space with a smaller and more manageable universal standard. To accomplish this task it was necessary to remove all duplication from the entire sRGB space and organize the consolidated spaces that remained into a normalized color standard. In simpler terms, the zenColorCode® (ZCC) is a patented method to eliminate millions of visually indistinguishable colors that represent all, not just part of, the sRGB color space and organize them into a universal digital color standard that consists of an expandable range of over 4,000 unique colors described by a simple 4-digit code. This new standard, unlike any other color systems before it, was specifically designed to instantly and accurately communicate color swatches via email or text on a digital device. The device dependent world of today doesn’t just make it easier for us to send and receive information in a digital format, it makes it necessary to do so.
A color scientist named Fred Billmeyer outlined five rules of color communication in the 1970s. His first rule states, “Select a single method of calculation and use it consistently.” In other words, choose one system and stick with it. This is particularly true when it comes to color communication in today’s interconnected world. There is no faster, more effective, or more cost-efficient means for digital color communication than the software applications that run on the zenColorCode® (ZCC) universal digital standard.
Written by Dann Gershon
CEO, zenColor® Company
For more information about zenColorCode® (ZCC) please go to zenColor.com