Ch31. Unwrapping CMF Design on Colorimeter, Yes or No?
Before we start, the answer is both. Depending on your samples to evaluate, sometimes it is useful to have a colorimeter, and sometimes human eyes may perform better accuracy. (中文版)
CMF is a specific discipline within industrial design that focuses on the development of a product’s color, material, and finish. Unwrap CMF shares bite-sized stories of CMF Design to inform and inspire those interested in this niche yet fascinating field, with digestible contents for anyone and everyone.
As a CMF Designer, one of the responsibilities is to ensure color consistency across all mass-production units. To do so, during trial production cycles, designers are required to check color samples for their color accuracy comparing to the standard color chip and to set up an acceptable limit range. Here is where the discussion begins.
Though colorimeters seem to be useful with its scientific measurement, however, on many consumer products, a reflective coating or color-changing additives may be implemented to the surface. There are also many products with complicated curvature or texture on the surface. In these frequent scenarios, the accuracy of a colorimeter is questioned. When light is transmitted and reflected through various coating effects and on top of diverse finishing texture, colorimeters may not capture colors as correctly as they should.
To further expand on this hypothesis, with the learning from Professor Donald Green’s research methodology course at Columbia University, I performed a small experiment with Nix Mini 2 color sensor. The task is to measure 30 painted color chips that have been randomly assigned into treatment and control groups, where the treatment is the additional iridescent pearls, giving it a diverse reflected chroma around corners.
Disclaimer: Color was measured at the rounded angle for the purpose of this experiment. In any other given situation, please always measure colors on a flat surface as advised by Nix Mini 2’s user manual.
With this small-quantity experiment, it was proven that when the colorimeter is used to measure color samples with iridescent pearls, the color difference (Delta E that is generated by CIE L*a*b coordinates) is higher than the color samples without iridescent pearls. Translated into designer’s words, when measured at the rounded corner of an iridescent red color chip, the colorimeter will read it with a pinkish hue which is the result of the iridescent pearls.
The finding from this experiment, however, does not suggest that colorimeters are not suitable for all occasions. For example, when the same Nix Mini 2 color sensor is used to measure the flat surface of an air conditioner, the accuracy of color sensor can reach as precise as Delta E <1.5.
To sum up, colorimeters and gloss meters are great with measuring colors on top of flat surfaces that are without decorative coating. However, on products with a complicated finish, curvature, or texture, designers may need to check color accuracy manually through human eyes.
All that being said, this is just a preliminary exercise with one kind of colorimeter and color samples. I welcome any comment and experience-sharing to inspire more thoughts and possibilities! 😉
Enjoy learning? Use the CMF terminologies mentioned above and continue on with your own research journey on the web. Comments and inspirations are welcome!
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