The colour “University Red” is a specification trade name used by Nike, not a fixed value or standard. In fact, any “named” colours, like “Vermillion” or “Rose Gold” don’t typically have standard colour values, like Pantone colours do. Pantone and the Pantone Matching System is one kind of standardised colour system. To arrive at the colour value for the “University Red”, sample runners would be measured with a colorimeter. The colour values used for your in the patch shown below equal that colour.
Another thing to keep in mind is that screen colour values are different from print colour values. This is because each method uses a different colour system – ‘RGB’ (‘R’ed, ‘G’reen, ‘B’lue for screen devices, like phones or computers, and ‘CMYK’ (‘C’yan, ‘M’agenta, ‘Y’ellow, ‘K’ for black) for printed matter. RGB devices project light whilst printed matter reflect light. The available gamut of RGB devices, or range of possible colours that can be created, is much larger than the CMYK (print) colourspaces. Without calibration, RGB devices can be very misleading in terms of viewing colour.
Here are patches of the measured colour mentioned earlier on the left, which, again, may not match the actual product due to device and reproduction differences, and a brighter red on the right:
Here is the shoe:
On a device with a calibrated screen in a balance ambient light environment, the left patch and the shoe will look very similar, if not a ‘match’. So, if one wanted to get a brighter red result, all the Cyan and Black from the original colour could be removed, leaving only Magenta and Yellow.
The only way to assure colour matching is to require printed samples for approval or by using a standardised colour system, like Pantone. For instance, Coca-Cola “red” is PMS 484. PMS 484 has a specific, published target value to which an ink colour can be mixed and then measured with standardised devices, like the colorimeter mentioned earlier. Even so, there is no such thing as an exact colour match. Any printing or display device will have variations since in the end, the output is mechanical in some way and so, subject to variation.
The industry understanding is to be within an acceptable range of error units that can be measured and calculated. A variation of up to dE 1.0 would not be visible in a controlled viewing environment to most humans, and that remains an accepted numerical standard to this day. The difference can be measured, which is needed for process control, but it’s not likely to be ‘see-able’. Four-colour (full colour) printing is far more difficult to quantify, but there are reliable methods for doing so, but this is outside the scope of this discussion.
Other factors that affect colour interpretation is the nature of light in the viewing environment, the colour of the substrate and surrounding colours, the white point of transmitted light reflecting through the ink, whether the ink is printed on a matte or gloss surface, whether there is a coating and the colour of that coating and other factors. Colour science is a complicated and involved discipline, but it helps to define the human interaction with, and therefore the perception of, colour.
When colour is critical, as for brand colours, the parameters for acceptability are established either through trial and error or by specifying a standardised colour to which the printer must match to within a reasonable, pre-determined specification.