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Wow Me, Don't Scare Me!
Making the Most of Color Printers without Making a Mess
Color used to be a luxury. Only the big guys with fatso ad budgets shelled out for multicolor cards, brochures, and other leave-behinds that went home with customers -- maybe to remind them of the business message, maybe to line the birdcage.
But today, color is for everybody. And it's everywhere. That's the new problem. Too much color, in all sorts of weird combinations, and not always enough sense about how to use it. Here's a quick low-down on color -- and how to make the most of it without making a scary mess.
Isaac Newton discovered that color is light. White light, in fact. Refracted into a spectrum of primary light colors: purple, dark blue, light blue, green, red, yellow. These colors can be reduced to three primary colors -- red, green and blue -- which in turn make up all other colors. There are all kinds of scientific reasons why this works.
To create great promotional materials, we don't need to know science. We do need to know our company, our market, and our own aesthetic values.
Color has many facets. It can create texture and contrast, bringing life to words on a page. On an experiential level, contrasts in tone often soften an image, or create an illusion of three-dimensional depth.
Color itself has three characteristics: hue, value and chroma. Hue reflects the base of color: redness, greenness or blueness. Value is the degree of lightness or darkness. And chroma reflects brightness and dullness.
Light-value tints usually work best with shades of darker-value pure colors. For instance, pink goes with violet better than pale blue with maroon. Customers gravitate subconsciously toward "favorite" colors simply because they like their hue. Warm colors, reds and yellows, may invite a different type of customer from cool blues and greens.
If you're seeking shock value recognition, you may decide to choose clashing colors as company emblems. Yellow-orange letters with an electric blue background will definitely grab attention. But is that the kind of attention you want?
Colors can overwhelm your image. A hundred-odd years ago, Vincent van Gogh aptly summed up the power --and danger-- of reckless color combining, "If complementary colors of equal value are used -- that is, of the same degree of vividness and light -- when juxtaposed they will be of such violent intensity that the human eye could scarcely bear the sight."
Keep your customers coming back for more -- don't scare them away with chartreuse and neon yellow when dusty rose lettering on a simple yet elegant off-white background will do the trick.
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