Dutch analytics and assessment company Color Concepts has rebranded as Colorbase to mark a shift from profiling inkjet materials and matching these to different printer technologies on behalf of manufacturers to providing this data as an online service.
The overarching aim is to cut waste from the large format printing process by delivering the settings that are needed to achieve predictable results when printing. This is founded on work that has been underway for some years resulting in 1.2 million recipes required to match media, print and ink and achieve a right first time result. The database covers more than 3,700 substrates, almost 450 printers and 96 different Rips.
The organisation appointed Brend Kouwenhoven as general manager to lead the transformation at the start of the year. He says: “The printing process is there to create applications, not simply produce output.”
He adds: “It might be to create a traffic sign to last for many years, a tin can with the right colour or a vehicle graphic to withstand tough conditions. Whatever the application, the colour usually needs to be 100% accurate, and the overall product needs to comply with any environmental or regulatory requirements that go with it, such as UV/fire/wind resistance, slip levels etc. Otherwise, that print will have to be redone, which is a waste we shouldn’t have to subject our planet to.
“We are a technical and scientific company by nature, which means we always look for the best and most efficient solutions. We believe we have created something revolutionary for our industry that will also greatly benefit the environment. Over many years, our labs have tested thousands of print combinations and developed great software and testing processes to do this.”
The rebrand from Color Concepts has resulted in a three-pronged approach: ColorBase Labs, ColorBase Exchange and ColorBase Toolbox. The Toolbox is the searchable database to find the profile that matches material to ink on the printer and the relevant Rip.
