Never should anyone take for granted that what you see on screen will determine how the colours appear in print.

A simple fact is that monitors base colour on RGB, while the process is CMYK in print which carries a smaller gamut. Therefore, the correct use of colour mode and file format is critical, or you could encounter unexpected shifts with specific colours. The usual examples we see are that blues can turn purple, oranges become a muddy brown, or even vibrant greens dull.

On BBC Radio 2, we heard one typical example on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show’s Pause for Thought with Sarah Joseph, an editor of a Muslim lifestyle magazine. She encountered a colour problem but only after all the magazine had been printed and distributed to readers.

We suspect the designer may never have had the necessary commercial print experience to understand the intricacies of the process. Instead, they relied on computers to deliver the final result – unfortunately, it was not a result neither publisher nor the designer expected.

To hear what went wrong, click here: The Chris Evans Breakfast Show.