Colour charts and a Z-Card alternative

Q I'm a designer from Australia working in London and I am looking for a CMYK swatch book - not the kind that Pantone produces, but a book that shows all the possible colour combinations using the four process colours, ie cyan, magenta, yellow and black. It would typically consist of pages with a grid of squares showing percentages of, for example, cyan up one axis and magenta up the other axis etc. In Oz, I would get this off my printer, but no one seems to make them here. Do you know where I might be able to track one down?

A I have indeed received books such as this from printing companies who've produced them as a promotional tool. In the absence of such a thing being readily available from your printer, a couple of mainstream commercial publishers produce guides like this, too. Have a look at the Process Color Manual: "24,000 CMYK combinations for design, pre-press and printing", for around £15. Also, Colour Index by Jim Krause (circa £9). This contains more than 1,100 colour combinations, and includes CMYK and RGB formulas for print and web media. Both are available via Amazon. I am also indebted to the ever-helpful Bill Cheesman for letting me know that Heidelberg issued Process Colour Look-up Guide recently. It was sent out to almost 20,000 designers and printers, and is described as "a single reference point for the ISO 12647 era". Speak to business manager Lance O'Connell nicely and he might just send you one. Contact: 020 8490 3500.

Q Do you know if Z-Cards are still a patented product, or are there alternative suppliers or alternative ‘me-too' products out there?
Andrew, via email

A Yes, yes and yes. Apart from the ubiquitous Z-Card and its trademarked range of PocketMedia (www.zcard.co.uk), you could try Curveball Print Media (www.curveballprintmedia.co.uk), Whitney Woods (www.whitneywoods.co.uk), Cardmasters (www.cardmasters.co.uk), Clinical Print Finishers with its pocket information cards (www.clinical-print.com), Boris (www.zfoldcard.com), PopOut Products (www.popoutproducts.com), or Spreadcard (www.spreadcard.co.uk). I am experiencing the habitual nervousness that any list like this tends to generate as I'm sure to have missed someone off. Please let me know so I can create a new definitive list.