What is the difference between spot color and process color?

The difference between spot colors and process colors is the way the color is mixed.

The best way to describe this is printing. When printing most printers will use 4 colored inks known as CMYK (Cyan Majenta Yellow and Black).

A process color is created by mixing the CMYK colors together to get the different shades and colors within your printout.

With Spot colors they are mixed to a certain color specifically and known as a Pantone or PMS color. Then this certain color cartrididge is placed in the printing press and printed.

So in order to make a process and spot color print, special presses have 5 or more cartridges so they can print CMYK with extra spot colors.

Now the reason why there are Spot colours is to keep a certain color that won't change throughout all printing and design. Having a specific color throughout a logo is very important to many businesses as a slight change in color from just using a process color can change the whole look of a logo. In most cases the problem is too much of one color when printing in CMYK. For example a logo that we have previously printed was a light organge and was pressed with a process color of CMYK. The result was a very bright yellow, making the corporate logo look playful instead of clean and slick. While if instead was printed to the spot color, this problem wouldn't of occured and the spot color would be reflected as seen on your digital design (as long as your screen has been calibrated).