The Pink Buzz Team
These four cloured dots are usually seen on the bottom of newspapers that are printing in multi-colour.
What do they mean?
They represent the four basic colours in the CMYK colour palette used in the printing process. These are Cyan (a shade of blue), Magenta , Yellow and Black (Key).
These dots are used as an accuracy-check for the colour printing process. If the four dots are properly aligned and appear in the right colour at the bottom of each page, the other coloured text and images on that page have been printed and aligned accurately.
They are known as Registration Marks. The CMYK printing process uses a combination of these four base colours to create all the rest of the colours used.
They are also printed in the shape of hearts in some newspapers.
Why is Black called Key?
It is a common misconception that the letter K is used to represent black instead of the letter B to eliminate confusion with Blue. Here Key is a shortform of the phrase Key Plate. In printing on paper, the Key Plate is a special plate that adds details to an image. Most often this plate uses the colour black. Hence, black is called Key and is represented by K.
Printing presses print newspapers at a very high speed. This makes it impossible to check each newspaper and these four coloured dots tell the printers if the printing has been accurate.
