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SSC Brain
Brand Colour Audit

What Are Your Brand Colours, Exactly?

Most businesses cannot answer this with confidence. The website uses one teal, the brochure uses another, the social media uses a third, and nobody can find the original brand spec. We measure your logo and produce a complete reference: Pantone, hex, CMYK, Lab, plus contrast checks for accessibility.

See Pricing and Order

You Know This Problem

Your printer asks for the Pantone code. You don't know it. The original brand designer is long gone and the spec sheet was never archived.

Your developer asks for the exact hex. You sample it from the website with a colour picker, but it varies subtly between pages because each one was hand-coded at a different time.

Your stationery supplier asks for the CMYK. You guess from the hex with an online converter and hope it prints close to the screen colour.

Your accessibility consultant flags that your headlines fail WCAG 2.1 AA contrast on body backgrounds and you have no idea which combinations are legal and which are not.

Every team has a different version of "your colour". Every supplier produces a slightly different result. The brand drifts a little further from itself with every project.

What We Measure, How Accurately

Four colour systems plus accessibility, with an honest confidence score on every match.

Exact

RGB and Hex

Sampled directly from the logo pixels. These are exact, to the integer. The values your developer needs for the website, your designer for digital comps.

Exact

Lab values

The perceptual colour space designers and printers use professionally. Device-independent and the only way to compare colours fairly across screens and substrates.

Approximate, calibrated

CMYK

Standard sRGB to CMYK conversion. Good for digital proofing. For final print runs your printer should soft-proof against their destination ICC profile (FOGRA39, GRACoL).

Approximate, scored

Pantone (closest match)

Nearest PMS Coated swatch using CIE Delta E 2000 perceptual distance. Every match comes with its Delta E so you know if it's exact, close, or approximate.

If a Pantone match has Delta E above 5.0 we flag it on the report and recommend you confirm against a physical Pantone Coated swatch book. We don't pretend the screen-derived value is gospel.

A Real Example: Our Own Logo

We ran the audit on our own SSC logo as a demo. This is what the deliverable looks like.

Colour Hex CMYK Pantone Match
Cool grey#CACCC1C1 M0 Y5 K20Cool Gray 3 CΔE 4.5 (close)
Black#1E1D1DC0 M3 Y3 K88Process Black CΔE 0.8 (exact)
SSC lime#C2D807C10 M0 Y97 K15382 C (Citrus)ΔE 0.9 (exact)

Plus a full WCAG contrast grid showing every colour-on-colour combination, with AA/AAA grades. Delivered as a 4-page branded PDF you can hand to any printer, designer, developer or accessibility consultant.

What You Get

A 4-page branded PDF reference you can hand to any printer, designer, developer or accessibility consultant.

Every Brand Colour, Measured

Up to five dominant colours extracted from your logo using k-means clustering in Lab colour space. Each one with its share percentage so you know what's primary and what's an accent.

Pantone, Hex, CMYK, Lab

Every colour expressed in all four professional systems. Pantone match comes with a Delta E score so you know how tight the match is.

WCAG 2.1 Contrast Grid

Every brand colour tested against every other brand colour, plus white and black. AA/AAA grades for body text and large text. Know exactly which combinations are legally compliant.

Text-on-Colour Recommendations

For each brand colour: should you put white or black text on it? Both contrast ratios spelled out. No guesswork.

Honest Confidence Scores

Pantone matches above Delta E 5.0 are flagged. Anti-aliasing artefacts are detected. We tell you when the match is exact and when you should verify with a physical swatch book.

Branded PDF Deliverable

A polished 4-page PDF you can share with any team, supplier or compliance auditor. Cover sheet, summary table, swatch detail per colour, full contrast grid and recommendations.

How It Works

1

Send Us Your Logo

Email or WeTransfer your logo. PNG, JPEG, SVG or PDF — whichever you have. The closer to the original master, the more accurate the sample.

2

We Run The Audit

Pixels sampled in Lab colour space. Dominant clusters extracted. Pantone matched with Delta E confidence. CMYK and Lab computed. Contrast grid built.

3

You Get The PDF

A branded 4-page PDF you can forward to anyone who needs your colours. Within 24 hours, often the same day.

Common Situations We Help With

  • Your printer asks for the Pantone code and you have no idea
  • Your developer needs the exact hex for the website redesign
  • Your stationery supplier needs CMYK and you've been guessing
  • WCAG 2.1 accessibility audit flagged contrast failures and you need to know which colours pass
  • You're rebriefing a designer and want to give them a definitive colour spec
  • Your brand has drifted across teams and you need a single source of truth
  • You're preparing a brand book or style guide and need accurate values
  • You inherited a logo with no documentation and need to reverse-engineer the spec
  • You want a complete reference document but don't need a full vector logo rebuild

Simple, Transparent Pricing

Flat fee per brand. All prices exclude VAT.

What You Need Price Turnaround
Brand Colour Audit Most common £75 24 hours
Multi-brand audit (2-5 brands) £60 each 48 hours
Bundle: audit + Logo Vectorisation From £195 Logo Vectorisation includes the audit

Branded 4-page PDF reference document delivered by email. JSON dataset available on request.

Quality Guarantee

If the audit doesn't tell you something useful that you didn't already know, we'll refund you in full. The RGB, hex, CMYK and Lab values are exact measurements. The Pantone match comes with its Delta E score. The WCAG contrast grid is mathematically derived. There is nothing to dispute.

Also from SSC Brain

Need a Vector Logo Too?

If you're auditing your colours because you're rebuilding your brand assets, you probably need a true vector logo as well. We rebuild logos as printer-grade SVG, PDF and EPS in five colour variants. The Brand Colour Audit is included free with every Logo Vectorisation order.

See Logo Vectorisation

Questions

What is in the report?
Every dominant colour in your logo, measured exactly and presented with Pantone (closest match), hex, RGB, CMYK and Lab values. Plus a WCAG 2.1 contrast grid showing which colour combinations are accessible for body text and which are not. Delivered as a branded 4-page PDF document.
How accurate is the Pantone match?
We use CIE Delta E 2000 perceptual distance against a curated Pantone Coated reference set. Each match comes with its Delta E score so you know whether it is exact (under 1.0), very close (under 2.3) or approximate (over 5.0). For production print runs we always recommend confirming the match against a physical Pantone Coated swatch book.
How are RGB, hex and CMYK calculated?
RGB and hex are sampled directly from the logo pixels in your file. They are exact. CMYK is converted from sRGB using the standard simple algorithm and is good enough for digital proofing. For offset or large-format print, ask your printer to soft-proof against the destination ICC profile (FOGRA39 for European offset, GRACoL for US sheet-fed).
What is WCAG contrast and why does it matter?
WCAG 2.1 is the legal accessibility standard for web content in the UK and EU. Body text needs at least 4.5:1 contrast against its background to be legally compliant. Our contrast grid tells you which of your brand colour combinations pass and which fail, so you can pick text-on-background pairs that work for everyone, including the 3 million people in the UK with significant visual impairments.
Do I need a vector logo first?
No. The audit works on any logo file: PNG, JPEG, SVG, PDF, even a screenshot. The accuracy of the colour sample depends on the source: an original is best, a clean PNG is fine, a heavily compressed JPEG is still useful but the colours will have been mildly shifted by compression. We will tell you in the report if we suspect compression has affected the result.
What if my logo uses gradients?
We extract the dominant clusters in Lab colour space, so a gradient appears as a small spread of related colours. The report shows them as separate entries with their share percentages, so you can see how the gradient is distributed and pick anchor colours for print.
How quickly is it delivered?
Within 24 hours of receiving your logo. Most orders are turned around the same working day.
Is this connected to the Logo Vectorisation service?
Yes. Every Logo Vectorisation order at £195+ already includes the brand colour reference. The standalone Brand Colour Audit is for cases where you have a vector logo already but lack a complete colour spec, or where you just need the colours measured for stationery, web design, signage or accessibility compliance.
Do you keep my logo on file?
We keep your file for 30 days in case you have follow-up questions. After 30 days it is deleted. We do not use your logo for any other purpose, do not share it with third parties, and do not use it as training data.

Get Started

Tell us about your brand. Your price is calculated instantly.

Or email hello@sscbrain.co.uk directly