Using the new Paper Lookup Tool, which became available on the company’s website on 15 May, designers and marketers can upload a logo or brand visual identity instead of searching through numerous paper swatches or employing a scattergun approach to requesting samples.

The free-to-use software then searches the company’s coloured paper ranges for the closest match against the three dominant colours in the image that has been uploaded.

The tool shows up to three paper colours from each of the different ranges available from Leicestershire-based Wigston: Senses Paper, Gmund Colors and Kaskad Folio.

Designers can either work from the information given or can fill in an online form asking for one of Wigston’s colour experts to run a human assessment of the brand to complement the results of the tool, and send out the most appropriate samples.

The company said the aim of the tool is to reduce the time and energy designers need to spend on matching and choosing materials while also helping them to keep up to date with the options as and when Wigston adds new ranges.

Wigston marketing manager Kieran Dallow said: “It can be difficult judging colour across different media, but our Paper Lookup Tool takes away the guess work.

“We have spent many hours ensuring that the web colour references for our range are as close to the physical product as possible, and we believe we got it pretty accurate.

“However, we’re totally aware that it’s impossible to get an exact replication of the paper colour because of the different colour models used in coloured paper production and screen graphics.

“That’s why we also created a form at the bottom of the page, to request for one of our colour experts to conduct a human assessment of the brand against our paper colours.”

Dallow said more than 200 people had used the tool within the first two weeks of its launch and that it had garnered “a lot of positive feedback”.