international color consortium

In today's digital color world the International Color Consortium (ICC) is a critical organization for graphic design and production people to get to know. The ICC was established in 1993 by a handful of industry vendors to create, promote and encourage the standardization and evolution of open, vendor-neutral, cross-platform color management system architecture and components. The outcome of this cooperation was development of the ICC profile specification now in use by leading vendors of color management solutions. ICC regular membership now includes 65 companies and organizations, in addition to four honorary members and seven liaison members. NPES, The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies, serves as administrative secretariat.While much of ICC's work has by necessity tended to be technical in nature, education and outreach have been identified as an important priority in the coming years. Indeed, in ICC's 2004 Progress Report, consortium chairman Craig Revie called for "Evangelism For Color Management."

Revie wrote, in part:

"ICC's key mission as it entered 2004 could best be described as evangelism. Having created and refined a set of powerful color management tools, ICC is now giving priority to education and promotion to involve more people in ICC and help more people benefit from the Consortium'swork.

"Late in 2003 ICC's steering committee launched a comprehensive strategic planning effort. The goal is to identify ways in which ICC should grow and expand now that the great majority of the difficult technical work underlying the ICC Specification has been accomplished. The specification is broadly used, and profiles based on it are demonstrating their value in every field, from digital photography to outdoor advertising. Companies large and small, in a wide range of specialties, are realizing higher quality, dramatically reduced errors and rework, and greater productivity through ICC-based color management.

"This encouraging scenario reflects more than a decade of work by ICC and its volunteer members, as well as the willingness of those members to share their ideas, technologies and product information freely for the common good. In addition to developing the ICC Specification and several improved versions, leading to the current Version 4, ICC has implemented an ambitious program to identify practical difficulties users have encountered in their applications of the specification. We have addressed and resolved scores of these issues, and the result is a more flexible, user-friendly and valuable document.

"Now, ICC's focus changes to the challenges of increasing recognition of color management and ICC color profiles, expanding their use and extending ICC's impact into new fields. As part of this effort, the consortium is steadily expanding its network of both formal and informal liaison activities - linking ICC to standards organizations, industry groups, related industries, and interested individuals in many fields.

"This year, in short, is an excellent opportunity for new participants to become part of a challenging and rewarding enterprise. ICC looks forward to welcoming a diverse range of new members and allies in the coming year, and multiplying the impact of this important work."

Contact: 703.264.7200 or www.color.org