Historically, physical color standards have been the foundation of color communication throughout the textile and apparel industry. They're familiar, tangible, and deeply embedded in traditional workflows.

But as digital product creation has become the norm, many teams are asking an important question:

Do physical standards still offer the most efficient way to communicate color?

The headaches are familiar. Too many lab dips. Too many inconsistent results. Too much time lost. The good news is that most of these issues are increasingly solvable with the right tools: digital color technology.

When we talk about “white” in the textile world, there are a few specialized concepts that need to be understood.

Here's a breakdown of what you need to know if you’re going to be measuring or assessing white fabrics.

In textile workflows color is often treated as a visual reference, when in reality, it is critical data. If that data isn’t centralized, stable, and measurable, color outcomes are left open to interpretation, variation, and avoidable risk across the supply chain. 

Traditionally, most color teams have relied on physical color standards - Fabric swatches dyed and shipped by a standard provider. The limitations of these established standard libraries are well-known…

Digital color technology is not new. It has been around and utilized by brands and suppliers for decades. Some teams, however, still have difficulty letting go of a physical/visual process.

Link to Sourcing Journal’s Fireside Chat featuring Doug Bynum and Marc Levine discussing creating custom color references that can be printed on site in minutes (nSPIRE ColorCards)

Did you know….natific systems can be fully embedded with any PLM?