Do you want to look more sophisticated in print?

By limiting your color palette and using colors low in saturation you can instantly look more sophisticated, elite and expensive. To proclaim these "high-end" qualities to the world, cut down on your use of color.

High end design is the realm of black, white and grey. Think of luxury cars, they are black, white or silver. If you were to see a purple mercedes, it would feel off or even wrong. In art terms, this is called being less saturated or if you go all the way to gray scale unsaturated.

For example: Ads for fragrances, especially for men, appear in using little or even no color - "low saturation" and low contrast.  If you look at the ad for "Dark Obsession" you can barely read the name and "for men" almost disappears. The bottle has just barely a hit of brown in it, you may not even be able to detect it here. Notice  how the bottle has a strong highlight on it. That is the point of highest contrast. High contrast draws your eye to it. When viewing the piece you will certainly land on the bottle, you can't help it. This is a pure branding piece with no sales copy! 

In the Chrome Azzaro sample, you can see how they have limited their color palette, using a low saturated image with a bit of light blue to highlight the product. Their typography is more readable than the Calvin Klein ad because it is a sales piece, in contrast to the branding example above.

When using these more sophisticated low contrast, low saturation color palettes be sure to keep your text readable.

You can remember this concept by thinking of high contrast as and shouting low contrast as whispering.

Keep an eye out for this type of color scheme and let me know where you find it.