Color

Be Kind to the Color Blind

Using color and color alone as a visual cue is appealing because it’s usually an aesthetically pleasing and a minimalist design technique. Calls to action and visual cues are critical to interface designers because users, especially on the web, have limited patience and are looking to process information and make decisions quickly. Since the brain recognizes and forms an emotional bond with colors almost immediately, colors are a natural choice for visual cues. Unfortunately, it’s easy to alienate or confuse some of your users when some of those aesthetically pleasing colors look very similar. To point out a few interfaces that use hard to differentiate colors as visual cues, here are a few examples that have given me some trouble.

Trouble-Free Color Palettes: Transform

As the internet and television bring us instant information and access to millions of resources worldwide—some more trustworthy than others—separating fact from fiction requires a bit of skill ... and luck. Illustrator Lonnie Busch recognizes this conundrum, as depicted in his illustration below. Using a palette that combines warm, rich shades along with cooler highlights, Busch is able draw the viewer into the action.

Fifty Monochromatic Website Designs

Color choice is a key element to the success of any design. It invokes an atmosphere and sets the mood. One method for using color is to use only shades of a color, which is known as a monochromatic color scheme.

The Newest Tool for Technical Communicators: Redux

Discusses color properties and color systems. Re-examines and supports Jan V. White's advice to technical communicators to use color to increase document usability. Discusses what technical communicators should know about color to work effectively with professional printers.

How Color Defines Purpose in User Assistance Content

Of all the visual cues in your help interface, color is one of the strongest. Users will recognize and react to the color of each element in your help window before reading a single word of text. Color allows users to determine the purpose of each element on the computer screen. When designing the visual aspect of your help content (via CSS and so on), as well as the help interface itself, be sure to use the same color for objects that share a purpose.

Correcting Color in Sony Vegas

We’ll begin this series by discussing one of the most important features in any pro nonlinear editor: color correction. The first thing you need to do before beginning any type of color correction work is to determine what "correct" color looks like. Rarely does your computer screen display colors correctly.

Color Universal Design (CUD): How to Make Figures and Presentations That are Friendly to Colorblind People

There are always colorblind people among the audience and readers. There should be more than ten colorblinds in a room with 250 people (50% male and 50% female). There is a good chance that the paper you submit may go to colorblind reviewers. Supposing that your paper will be reviewed by three white males (which is not unlikely considering the current population in science), the probability that at least one of them is colorblind is whopping 22%!

COLOURlovers

COLOURlovers™ is a resource that monitors and influences color trends. COLOURlovers gives the people who use color - whether for ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification - a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.

How to Cool a Hot Photo

When your photo can't be changed, surround it with cool color.

Colour Theory

In this article, I’ll cover colour basics and three simple colour schemes so that you can feel confident about choosing colours for your site. I’ll follow up this article with another piece on how to simplify these colour choices. After all, it’s more fun to enjoy the compliments on your Web site design than it is to sweat over the colour choices.

Colour Schemes and Design Mockups

After a web designer presents a site’s architecture, or wireframe, to a client for approval, the next step is to determine the look and feel of the site through colour and graphics. In this article, I’ll demonstrate how I keep this process as simple as possible, both for myself and for the client.

Perceiving Hierarchy Through Intrinsic Color Structure

Color is an intrinsic visual attribute of form that functions as language and message. The purpose of this study was to investigate objectively structured color combinations as a means to communicate visual order for the purpose of reinforcing information hierarchy. Controlling the visual relationships of hue, value and chroma contrast can significantly assist a person's cognitive ability to assign importance and dominance to a controlled color structure. This research study provided significant findings supporting the hypothesis that intrinsic color structures can be formulated objectively; represent a visual hierarchy; and be perceived in an understandable order. Chi-square analysis for 99 participants was calculated for task effectiveness. To analyze task efficiency, three distinct ANOVA calculations were made for time variations. The documented findings of this study presented explicit evidence that addresses specific mechanisms for objective color ordering. The natural inferences of the study support the proposition that there is a natural relationship between objective color ordering principles and human perception.

Color, Contrast and Design in News Design

An online guide that explains color theory and shows how to use it in design through examples and exercises.

Why are Things Colored?

Scholars have learned that all the colors in the universe originate from a mere fifteen fundamental physical causes. These causes appear over and over, lending color to the world around us.

Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?

At the core of good science and engineering is the careful and respectful treatment of data. We calibrate our instruments, scrutinize the algorithms we use to process the data, and study the behavior of the models we use to interpret the data or simulate the phenomena we may be observing. Surprisingly, this careful treatment of data often breaks down when we visualize our data.

Twenty of The Best Uses of Color in Current Web Design

Many sites “play it safe” when choosing colors. Brilliant colors have to be carefully controlled to avoid looking amateur. I’ve selected these 20 sites for excellent use of color along with their overall web design. Quality of CSS, features, ease of use all come into play as well.

Using Color in Your Documents

People often use colors in their documents in the wrong ways. Many students think that bright colors should be used in a document when they want to attract someone’s eye to a place on the page. Colors alone, however, should be used in synch with white space, font size, type and placement of whatever it is you want someone to be attracted to. Furthermore, just because something is filled with a bright color does not mean that it is eye-catching or attractive. True, bright colors will quickly draw the eye there, but use colors in a way that will make the eye stay there, not glance away in disgust.

Link List Color on Intranets

Lists of links are an intermediate case between content-embedded links and menu items. Showing listed links in blue or in the site's main link color is the recommended design — and the one most intranets follow.

Get the Most Out of Your Color

Color can play an important role in technical documentation.

Take the Colorblindness Test

Although we all know that the colors viewed on your computer's monitor are not accurate for print reproduction, your screen color is probably good enough to yield reasonably accurate colorblindness test results. We invite you now to test yourself for colorblindness on-line.

Writing for Other Cultures: Cultural Associations of Color and Graphics

When writing for cultures that are not your own, you must consider the powerful cultural associations that color and graphics have. Understanding and leveraging these associations leads to documentation that is strong and usable, while not understanding them leads to cultural miscommunications and misunderstandings that can render your information useless.

Decorative Color as a Rhetorical Enhancement on the World Wide Web

Professional communication scholars have defined the decorative narrowly and subordinated it to informational text. Yet, current psychological research indicates that decorative elements elicit emotion-laden reactions that may precede cognitive awareness and influence interpretation of images. We conceive the decorative in design, and specifically color, as a complex rhetorical phenomenon. Applying decorative and color theory and analyzing design examples illustrating aesthetic, ethical, and logical appeals, we present a range of potential uses for color in electronic media.

The Effects of Using Colored Paper to Boost Response-Rates to Surveys and Questionnaires

Many people have speculated over the last 80 years or so about the possibilities of using colored paper to boost response-rates to surveys and questionnaires, and several studies have been carried out. Most of these enquiries report no significant effects from using colored paper, although there have been some exceptions. In this investigation we pooled together the results from all of the experimental studies known to us on the topic and we carried out a meta-analysis to see if there might be a positive effect for colored paper overall. The results indicated that this was not the case, for we found no significant differences between the response rates to white and to colored paper in general. However, when we considered separately the most common colors used, it appeared that pink paper had the greatest effect. "One of the first considerations [to obtain a high response-rate] is the color of paper used in mail questionnaires. United States government officials who are responsible for the mailing of several million questionnaires every year have definitely determined that yellow paper gives the highest percentage of returns, with pink next in effectiveness, while all dark colors give much smaller returns" [1, p. 142].

Applying Color Theory to Digital Displays

For backgrounds behind text, use solid, contrasting colors, and avoid the use of textures and patterns, which can make letterforms difficult to distinguish or even illegible. Choose combinations of text color and background color with care. Value contrast between body text and its background color should be a minimum of about eighty percent.

Ensuring Accessibility for People With Color-Deficient Vision

If you do not consider the needs of people with color-deficient vision when choosing color schemes for applications and Web pages, those you create may be difficult to use or even indecipherable for about one in twelve users.

Selecting a Color Palette

It's not hard to persuade a designer that color matters. But persuading Fortune 500 companies? You might be surprised. Color consultant Leatrice Eiseman has carved out a major career in helping companies 'make correct choices in colors that sell.'

Colour

Colour is one of the designer's best tools. There are lots of ways to use it to help communicate a message. Colour can carry meaning, express personality, differentiate, frame, and highlight content.

Color Theory for Digital Displays: A Quick Reference: Part I

This article is Part I of a quick reference on color theory for digital displays. It is the first in a series of articles about the use of color in application program user interfaces and on Web sites.

Color Theory for Digital Displays: A Quick Reference: Part II

This article is Part II of a quick reference on color theory for digital displays. It is the second in a series of articles about the use of color in application program user interfaces and on Web sites.

网页设计中的颜色

从心理学角度来讲，不同的颜色代表不同的意思。从这个观点出发，本文讨论网页界面中背景颜色和内容颜色的关系。了解这个关系，有利于：a) 为网页中不同的内容选择适合的颜色；b) 浏览网页时，可以方便的找到需要的内容。

Tech Comm Jobs and Freelance Opportunities along the Colorado Front Range

This section of the RMC web site contains information for both jobseekers and freelancers, including listings of recent job postings in the area, national job postings, freelance resources, and an FAQ for freelancers.

The Pantone Matching System: Always Show Your True Colours

It can be very frustrating to see the logo you worked hard to create look deep blue on the client's letterhead, blue-greenish on his business card, and light blue on his very expensive envelopes. A way to prevent this is by using a standardized color matching system, such as the Pantone Matching System.

The Sound and Motion of Color

Can sound and motion illustrate the personality of color? The Animation class at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design set out to discover the answer.

Can Color-Blind Users See Your Site?

Information that will help you to create more readable Web sites.

Hexadecimal Color Codes in HTML That Look or Sound Dirty, But Are in Fact Merely Colorful

It's just like how you can make your calculator spell BOOBS, although people inexperienced with HTML probably won't appreciate it.

On-Target Color

You'll probably recognize this color effect used by a certain department store that plays on the colors in its logo. The effect essentially reduces the image to three colors--a white background, red image content, and a darker red for some depth; but you can choose any color combination or mix any number of colors for a solarized or false color effect.

Coloring Outside the Lines

This series of articles about color is designed to help you get started right now selecting colors for your site.

How to Find the Perfect Color

Getting that just-right color is part art, part science. We'll show you.

Mastering Image Exposure Corrections in Photoshop

It's very important to always do your exposure corrections in Photoshop first, before any other corrections or effects. If you don’t, you’ll find that correcting exposure is extremely hard (if not impossible) to do.

Accurate Image Manipulation for Desktop Publishing

Devoted to the best possible quality in the desktop publishing workflow. This calls for accurate calibration and correct choice for the working space.

Color Blender

Supply two color values in either hex, short hex, RGB percentages, or RGB decimals and get as many as ten colors shades between the two you supplied. Great for finding a color halfway between two shades you like, or mixing two colors together in various proportions.

Colour Design and Tools

With cartography on the Web, the use of colour plays an important role in the visualization and analysis of data. The correct application of colour for the display of thematic map data, allows for the better observation of interrelationships and patterns.

Hues to Use in 2005

These out-there colors won't come alone, or even in pairs... they'll be seen in packs. Designers, desperately searching for something fresh and new, will go balls out, applying this palette to tripped out patterns of stripes, polka dots, and plaids to create looks similar to those seen on the streets of Tokyo.

System Calibration

This section explains Linear Calibration. Linear is the same as gamma 1.0 or gamma-space 1.0.

Progress and Trends in Ink-jet Printing Technology

This paper provides a brief review of the various paths undertaken in the development of ink-jet printing. Highlights of recent progress and trends in this technology are discussed. The technologies embedded in the latest ink-jet products from current industry leaders in both thermal and piezoelectric drop-on-demand ink-jet methods are also described. Finally, this article presents a list of the potential ink-jet technology applications that have emerged in the past few years.

Color on Web Design

Psychologically speaking, different color has different meaning. From this point, this article focuses on the relationship between the background color and content of the web interface.

The Effect of Web Page Text-Background Color Combinations on Retention and Perceived Readability, Aesthetics and Behavioral Intention

The purpose of this experiment was to examine the effect of different web page text/background color combinations on users' retention and subjective perception. One hundred and thirty-six participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: black text on a white background (BW), white on black (WB), light blue on dark blue (B), or teal on black (TB). They then studied two Web pages, with a color combination consistent with their group assignment. One page contained information on the Neuron and the other consisted of information on a fictitious TV/DVD player. After studying each page they completed a quiz and survey. Analysis of the data indicated: a) Retention scores did not differ as a function of text/background color combinations; b) BW and B pages received the highest ratings for readability, and TB the lowest; c) B pages received the highest ratings for the aesthetic qualities; d) BW pages were perceived as most 'professional'; e) Subjective readability ratings significantly predicted retention; and f) Users view 'professionalism' as more strongly related to readability than aesthetics. Taken together, these results indicate that the relationship between font/background color combinations and outcomes is complex and often inconsistent with web guidelines posed by 'web gurus'.

When Good Color Goes Bad

Color expert Mike Davis of Colorprep knows what to do when color goes wrong... and many times it's the photographer or designer's fault!

Color in Motion

An interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism.

Resources for Teaching and Working with the Visual Aspects of Texts

An online guide that explains color theory and shows how to use it in design through examples and exercises.

Does Color In The Office Replace Color in the Print Shop?

Color printing has been a profitable application for print shops. Whether it be marketing collateral materials (brochures and the like), posters and signage or coupons, color documents have been the exclusive domain of offset printing.

Color in Technical Documents for Paper, Web, and PDF

Traditionally, technical documents have been produced in black and white because the cost of color reproduction on paper is high. With new delivery options of the Web and PDF, color is suddenly available at no cost online. And new digital printers make color on paper increasingly affordable. When opportunity knocks, issues tend to follow. Writers will find that using color is a learning experience. There is a new alphabet soup: RGB, CMYK, GIF, JPEG, CSS. There are new buzzwords: spot colors, process colors, digital printing. There are new techniques for representing color in Web pages and in PDF documents intended for paper or screen. Our presentation focuses on practical techniques, not graphic design.

Free Guide to Color Printing

3M Imaging has come out with a pamphlet that explains these color anomalies and more. And best of all, it's free.

Link Color Déjà Vu

It seems that Jakob Nielsen is back grinding on one of his old organs with the current AlertBox and the tune is 'standard link colors improve usability'. No one can blame Jakob for recycling old material. My goodness, he has been publishing a weekly column for almost 10 years, things are bound to come around again and again.

The Blue Background in PowerPoint

Why is the default color of PowerPoint dark blue? People prepare the best slides man can create - and yet they leave the default color stay dark blue.

Problems with Colors - and the Solution: Color Management

The profession of the technical editor is rapidly changing, from the pure text manufacturer to a data manager, which leads inevitably to intensive occupation with the production of the final product: the technical documentation on paper or online. The color matching reproduction on the local screen or printer plays a new, important role. Particularly since the meaning of color in documents increases rapidly.

Guidelines for Visualizing Links

Textual links should be colored and underlined to achieve the best perceived affordance of clickability, though there are a few exceptions to these guidelines.

Safe Web Colours For Colour-Deficient Vision

Colour is increasingly used these days to help convey information. When one in twelve men have some measurable degree of colour vision deficiency, the use of certain colours in certain ways can cause difficulty when navigating web pages or software, and even total illegibility in some cases. The key issue is to know when you are using colours which some people will not be able to differentiate - because that (for them) removes the benefit of using colour for visual cues. Colour scientists have long known which colours are confused by colour blind people, but this tends to be expressed in a way difficult for designers to utilise.

Change the Color of Visited Links

People get lost and move in circles when websites use the same link color for visited and new destinations. To reduce navigational confusion, select different colors for the two types of links.

Guidelines for Visualizing Links

Textual links should be colored and underlined to achieve the best perceived affordance of clickability, though there are a few exceptions to these guidelines.

The Big Picture on Monitors

The analog format of the CRT is challenged by the digital capabilities of the LCD monitor.

Color on the Web

You're seeing red. They're seeing orange. Not the same, is it? More often than not, color on the web is approximate. So how do you choose colors that are going to work best? Are you forever stuck with the old 216 color 'web-safe' colors? Is there technology that ensures what you see is what your visitors get?

Personalized Color Communications

Four firms discuss the benefits of color variable data printing, such as creating marketing campaigns and experiencing up to a 40 percent rate of return.

Color Forecasting

Every year I look forward to the Communication Arts issue that has the color predictions for the coming year. Mostly because I'm fascinated with the subject, but also because I want to see the funny color names they come up with.

Color Imaging Workflow Primitives: Details and Examples

The term 'color fidelity' refers to the successful interoperability of color data, from image creation to output across multiple targets, such that color reproduction quality consistent with the user’s intent can be achieved Note: Interoperability among system color components, necessary for color fidelity, is both color-workflow and market-segment dependent definitions for architecture, image state, and image processing.

Color Management How-To: Understanding Computer Color

Learning how to match the color you see on screen with that in your printed output is critical information for any digital artist or photographer. But first you need to understand how color works both on computer display and on paper. Start with this chapter from 'Real World Color Management.'

A Horse of a Different Color is Fine--Just be Accurate!

As much as the hardware and software manufacturers in the digital imaging world would like you to think that buying a digital camera and a photo quality printer will make you Ansel Adams, those of us that earn our living as pixel jockeys battle with color management in one way or another every day. Depending on your workflow and the final destination of your images, there are a number of ways to keep your colors accurate.

Industry Standard ICC Printer Profiles

If you have a Pantone-calibrated printer, you can use this online tool to determine which ICC profile is appropriate for your printer and platform.

Soft-Proofing and Printing with Profiles

Many photographers today print directly from Photoshop to photo-quality inkjet printers or send images to a lab to have enlargements made on LightJets, Lambdas, or the Fuji Pictography and Frontier systems. All of these devices are capable of stunning, photo-realistic output. However, if you do not employ color management effectively the output from these devices will not match the image you saw on your monitor. At best, you will waste some time, ink and paper making reprints. At worst, if you are sending images to a lab, proofs and reprints to get the image correct can become costly.

Behold the Value of Color

Why you should be designing pieces to be printed in color.

Color Management and Windows: An Introduction

An overview of Microsoft image color management technology.

Color Management Resources

A collection of dozens of links to color management prepress resources.

Against Non-Standard Link Colors

User tasks are carried out faster and better with sites that use standard link colors as opposed to non-standard.

Color Under Control

Several years after the hype began, color management is maturing into a useful tool that can solve real problems. Here's a comprehensive overview.

See Spot Print

An in-depth guide to working with spot colors in Photoshop.

Color in Mind

Despite advances in the technology of measuring and managing it, how we perceive color is still full of mystery and illusions.

The Full Gamut

Give your colors the room they need in Photoshop by understanding and choosing RGB working spaces.

It's a Colorful, Wired World

Adobe® PostScript 3 printing systems offer a variety of new features for better, faster, Web-savvy printing. Here's an overview of what they are and how they're likely to affect you.

Color Glossary

This glossary lists and explains color and visual perception terms which are relevant for graphic and Web design as well as usability. The information was taken from several sources and adapted to the needs of this glossary

La Ecología del Color

En el número 126 nos preguntábamos ¿existe el color?. Ahora, dos revisiones de la literatura que cubren cien años de investigación sobre el factor humano del color revelan cómo y dónde existe el color, y cómo los diseñadores pueden hacer mejor uso de él en entornos reales y simulados. Jim Wise nos lo explica.

¿Existe el Color?

Tendemos a considerar al color como un hecho objetivo: rojo es rojo y no puede ser visto de otra forma. Pero eso no es así. El color que percibimos depende de cosas como las palabras de que disponemos en nuestro lenguaje (nuestra cultura) para describirlos, los otros colores que lo rodean y lo que el cerebro espera ver.

Legal Color Names in HTML 4 and XHTML

There are sixteen (16) legal color names for use in HTML 4.x and XHTML. Any other color name is a browser-specific name and cannot be used in conforming HTML 4.x and XHTML documents.

Accentuation in Technical Illustration

There are various ways to accentuate a specific part in its installation position. However in order to keep the printing cost as low as possible, it is recommended to opt for stylistic devices that are all in black and white.

Northern Colorado Technical Writers Group

NCTWG is a resource for Technical Writers in northern Colorado. Membership is open to all technical writers. STC membership is not required. Meetings are held monthly and begin with an hour of socializing and networking, followed by a guest lecture or round-table discussion.

Natural Selections: Colors Found in Nature and Interface Design

The web is awash with sterile design solutions. IBM, Dell, Microsoft, and countless others are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Though one might say this makes browsing easier by virtue of a standardized interface, in reality such sites create mundane experiences for their users and fail to make a positive connection with their audience.

Colorblindness and Usability

You might do a lot of usability testing on your web site but you still might lose up to 10% of your audience because of some simple mistakes with colors. Specifically, your web site may be designed in a way that doesn't work well for people with colorblindness. Generally the fix is quite simple: be sure to provide excellent contrast between your various web page elements.

Considering the Color-Blind

Recently, I was surprised to learn that about 8 percent of men and 0.5 percent of women have some form of color blindness. For some Web sites that could translate to 1 in 12 visitors. That's a larger proportion of visitors than some other groups I consider when designing Web sites. The ratio of visitors viewing the Web with only 256 colors or a 640x480 pixel screen is usually less than 5 percent these days. Now include cross-browser support, older browsers, style sheets, and JavaScript in the mix. If you consider those issues when you design Web sites, you should consider your color-blind visitors, as well.

Color: The Newest Tool for Technical Communicators

Asserts that color must be used to make information clear, lucid, powerful—faster; its logical application must be controlled by the editor. Provides a comprehensive checklist to help editors use color effectively.

Eye on Color

Each day, thousands of websites lose credibility and all-important return traffic -- not because they're poorly written, constructed, designed, or advertised, but because of: colors that clash colors that camouflage colors that just plain don't work! Attention to color on the web is generally considered the province of web-design professionals -- but those of us who study and teach professional writing are in a prime position to use our knowledge and skills to lead the way toward a more aesthetically-pleasing, and rhetorically-effective, World Wide Web

Color Management Made Easy

See the same colors in InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat, thanks to the Adobe Color Engine.

Color Design for the Web

Did you know that a site visitor forms his or her first impression about your site within the first nine seconds of a visit? Making sure your color scheme is in contour with your site's content and visitors, is very important. You want the color scheme to enhance your site and it's content, not distract or confuse your users. Color gives users cues as to your site's navigation, grouping of content, importance, relationships, etc. For this reason, color is an essential element of Web site design. Most of the people relate to color similarly online and offline. Visitors to your site, whether they know it or not, respond to colors and other visual elements on your web site on a psychological level. An intrigued (and non-confused) site visitor is more likely to engage in the goal of your site -- whether it is meant to inform, entertain, or to sell goods or services.

Colour Me Usable!

Colour is used in interface design for a variety of purposes. Not only can colour convey meaning or highlight content, it is also an important part of corporate identity and branding. Where would the Coca Cola brand be without its distinctive red and white livery? All well and good, but the reality is that the use of colour can cause more problems than it solves. Interface designers must treat colour with caution for a variety of reasons - most importantly the huge variety of ways in which any given colour can be perceived. It is well known that older users and those with colour-deficit vision may have difficulty in perceiving certain colours. Different monitors may be poor at maintaining colours the same across displays, and of course many users are still working on black and white displays. In this environment, poor use of colour may mean that text is hard to read, eyestrain occurs, and users become frustrated. With this in mind, designers should consider the following guidelines relating to the use of colour in interface design.

Color Vision Confusion

Color blindness is mostly neglected, even most of the people do not consider this as a serious problem. However, color blindness can be a problem that disrupts many tasks.

Principles of Graphic Design

An interactive overview of design, color theory, composition and layout, perspective and typography.

Duotones

Duotones are a combination of two grayscale images, using two negatives and two printing plates. Sometimes we see super print quality using two blacks, to add midtones or highlights to an image, or to extend an image's overall tonal range. Back in the '80s the Time-Life Photography series of books used Black and metalic Silver inks to produce probably some of the best high-grade black and white photographic images ever printed. They're no longer in print, but you can find them in most better public or university libraries.

Accommodating Color Blindness

An estimated nine to twelve percent of the male population suffers from some form of color vision deficiency, commonly called 'color blindness.' It is important for computer interface designers to take into account and eliminate, if possible, any potential confusions that can arise because of color vision deficiencies. There are two major types of color blindness. The most prevalent causes are confusion between red and green. This type affects approximately eight to ten percent of the male population. In another type, an additional one to two Percent of men suffer from a deficiency in perceiving blue/yellow differences. Less than one percent of women suffer from any form of color blindness. To understand color blindness better, it is helpful to be familiar with the ways in which colors differ from each other. One standard way to discuss color is to divide it into hue, saturation and brightness (HSB).

The Red Queen Color Theory

The search for compelling color is a struggle. As in fashion, success at one time and place is no help at any other.

Illegal Colors

Illegal colors are those colors which you can pick on your computer that will not reproduce using traditional CMYK offset printing. For example, open the Apple color wheel. Set the brightness as high as it can be and click on the aqua color at nine o'clock on the wheel. You see that bright, glowy, neon-like color? Isn't it beautiful? Too bad, it's illegal. There is no way that ordinary CMYK inks can reproduce that color. Most people get into illegal color trouble when they pick a color that looks great on the screen, and then have the job printed using process colors. They then complain to the print shop that the job looks dull, that all the brightness is gone. That's the fault of picking illegal colors. You won't get arrested but you will be disappointed in the output. The following is a list of some of the popular desktop publishing program and how they handle illegal colors.