: Should my white logo be a Spot or Process color for printing? I am creating my logo in Illustrator (ready to place in InDesign as part of a DVD sleeve.) and I'm wondering if I should be

@Nimeshi706

If there is other ink on the substrate, and your logo is just the absense of ink, then it is CMYK(0). If on the other hand, your logo is printing in white on (for example) a silver foil or colored paper...then it is a "spot color."

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@Debbie163

White is absence of color in most printing techniques.

If you use a spot color for your white and use a standard offset printing, it will count as an extra plate and you will need to modify or pay to have the logo modified to ignore that extra separation anyway.

You can use a white spot color when you plan to use your logo on t-shirts or plastic for example, but rarely on paper (offset.) On offset and standard printing, you can simply use a normal C0-M0-Y0-K0 or "divide/clean-up" the logo to remove the white parts by using the pathfinder tool!

Some links related to your question:

How can I have prints with white ink?

Can a 2-color logo be red, black and white?

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@Shelley591

You can't print white with CMYK. So, if you are literally printing with a white ink, it'd have to be a Pantone color.

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@Michele215

In a practical case in this situation, it is the same. Yo can leave a CMYK at 0 values, "white" or inclusive rgb white.

But there are some times when there is a diference. For example printing dark T-shirts. You actually need a white ink to be printed there. But sometimes you can define a very light gray spot color so other people know there is sonething there, and replace it with actual white ink.

You can consider, instead of putting a "white" part of a logo, for example the dots on a domino's pizza, and making a "real hole" on the blue square. This way there is no "white" on your logo.

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@Eichhorn212

IIRC InDesign reads 0/0/0/0 as "paper" unless you spec an actual swatch in your AI file as 0/0/0/0.

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