Fruit From My Hands

This is the third in a series of posts concerning a survey that I conducted among some digital sewing pattern testers a few weeks ago. The initial post is here: https://fruitfrommyhands.com/2016/04/14/a-survey-for-sewists There was another post that prefaced this whole journey here: https://fruitfrommyhands.com/2016/04/11/what-digital-pattern-customers-want/.

My third question was posed to those sewists that print.  It was simply “If you print out patterns, do you print them in black and white or full color?”.  The answers were a choice between “black and white” or “full color”.

Again, I am blown away by the results here although I am finally in the majority of respondents.  Over 58% print their pattern pages in black and white! 

For myself, there is a significant cost difference in printing black & white or color.  I always like to print black & white unless I am doing some marketing things and feel the need to spend the extra money.  Color printing is three times the cost of black & white for me.  I must really want something in color to spend that extra money.  A digital pattern can quickly be expensive to print by the time a large pattern grid of 8.5″ x 11″ pages has a total page count of 64 or more.

Points to ponder: Do designers realize this?  I’ve seen some elaborate patterns where each size was drafted in a different color.  It was nice but those colors are lost in black & white format.  Some photos display differently in black & white.  The detail is not as sharp.  I’ve seen a great deal of high-resolution color photos used as illustrations for each step.  Some of them were not formatted in a manner that makes them legible in gray scale or black & white. Do designers consider the appearance of their graphics in black & white?