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. 

The door hanger that hung itself

On my front door I found this door hanger. It grabbed my attention instantly as it looked like a paint swatch. Without reading anything my brain when instantly to it's paint chip file, which led to further inspection.

Upon looking at it more closely, a second time, I saw there were words under the color blocks. It reads, "Why it takes a college education to paint your home." In art terms we call this a "second reading" as it was not the first thing we saw, it took a closer or second look.

The headline "Why it takes a college education to paint your home." tied nicely to the logo and name of the company "College Works Painting." The tagline under the logo "A higher degree of painting" followed the theme. It art and branding terms we would say its cohesive.

Flipping it to the backside we are rewarded with their second headline "Ninety-nine percent of a great paint job has nothing to do with painting." As you can see this is followed by a string of nine bullet points, logo, phone, website and license number. The 888 number and noticeable lack of address raise my suspicions. This is starting to feel like some kind of thin franchise deal. Speaking of thin, the paper is lightweight and the ink from the other side is visible. In art lingo we would say "it's bleeding through." The front is printed in just one color, blue and the back is printed in two colors, blue and black. The black is used as a percentage and appears grey.

They totally lost me with the headline on the backside of the piece "Ninety-nine percent of a great paint job has nothing to do with painting." I am sorry, as homeowner, I want a great paint job. The bullet points below don't adequately "pay-off" or explain the statement.

The second headline introduced a huge quality of doubt. The refrain in my brain is "Wow, they are only going to spend 1% of their attention on the actual paint job." Which leads me to "So, their college-aged enthusiastic sales person is going to give me a quick estimate, with a great price. Their college-aged painters will, show up on time, smell good, smile, finish on time and slop some paint on my house, get paint all over my driveway and use the wrong color."

Ok, now you've got me going on playing the rest of the scenario out. When I call to complain about my sloppy paint job the college-aged customer service person is going to tell me that "The painters tried hard and did their best and besides my Mom says it looks good!"

The good: Cohesive concept, they used the college theme throughout.

The bad: The text failed to communicate a compelling message. Instead instilled a feeling of distrust and doubt.

The ugly: The piece was printed on thin paper and in only two colors. It gives the impression of being cheap.

This door hanger hung itself. 

I think I will walk over to my neighbor, Todd, a local contractor with gnarly hands and a gruff attitude and ask him about painting my house. He seems like a better bet.

Red and Green an Exclusive Color Scheme

The Grinch may have stole Christmas, but Christmas owns the colors red and green. By the time we become adults we have seen this combination millions of times and it is burned into our subconscious. When we see these two colors used together we immediately associate them with Christmas.

It can be July and we can be looking at an ad for Turtle Wax, but when we see red and green, our brain thinks Christmas. For this reason, it’s a color combination rarely used for anything outside of this holiday. The color scheme’s exclusivity has become self-perpetuating!

There are several theories to why green and red are the Christmas colors. The Christian faith believes that green symbolizes everlasting life and red symbolizes the blood of Christ. This is by far the most popularly held belief.

Another theory dates back to the 14th Century when churches put on religious plays. In December, the production would reenact the scene in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. An evergreen tree was brought in to serve as the Tree of Life, since it was the only tree green at this time of year. Red apples were hung on the tree. The green symbolizes the tree and the color red symbolizes the apples. As the story goes, the people liked this so much they started bringing trees into their own homes and decorating them, starting the tradition of the Christmas tree.

Many cultures prior to the death of Christ used evergreen trees and holly as decoration in the cold winter months. The Pagan festival of the Yule used the colors of red, green, silver and gold. Once again the same colors repeat.

This is one holiday that is easy on retailers because they can say “Christmas” by using green and red without the risk of being politically incorrect. With December 25th fast approaching, be sure to get the most out of these seasonal colors before they go back in the closet to keep orange and black company.

The Super Simple Secret of Values

When signs or other graphics are hard to read it is often because the VALUE of the colors are too similar. 

Value is a term used to describe the lightness or darkness of colors. 

If you take a color image and convert it to a gray scale image you can easily see what the values of the color are. The same is true when you make a B&W xerox copy of a color page.  

When signs or other graphics are hard to read it is often because the value of the colors used are too similar. 

Look at the example above. You can see they have used two very different colors - red and blue. When the photo of the sign is converted to a gray scale image (the image on the bottom) you can see how similar the grays are. 

If you keep this super simple concept of values in mind when you are putting together your next document, flyer or presentation it will be more attractive and much easier to read. 

It is all a matter of lightness and darkness! 

5 Deadly Reasons that Black is Killing You – Part 5

Deadly Reason #5: Black is Killing Your Digital Brochure

Since the invention of the pdf, digital brochure and all kinds of sales material fly across the world as email attachments or downloads. If you are using large solid areas of black you instantly put up a resistance to printing the document out. You alarm your potential client with a refrain in their brain that goes something like this "Wow, if I print this out it is going to burn thought all of my black ink." I think I will skim through it and see if there is a page worth printing or skip it. 

You may rethink your digital brochure; because what looks good as a physical printed bound brochure you hand someone might not be a practical, usable document to send digitally.

5 Deadly Reasons that Black is Killing You – Part 4

Deadly Reason #4: Black is Killing You in Print

If you use large areas of black with white or colored type in your brochures and other printed material be aware that it could be fatal to your communications. Reversed type is 50% harder to read then dark type on a light background.

When you use a serif font and/or small type it amplifies the readability problem. If your audiences are 40 or over chances are they literally will be unable to read your material and will move on.

The same readability issues occur online with websites, blogs or pages with where you are using black, or dark backgrounds, with white or colored type on them.

Color counts. Stay tuned for more on the color black.

5 Deadly Reason that Black is Killing You - Part 2

See how unflattering
 black can be? 

Deadly Reason #2: Black is killing your looks.  

The harsh reality is when you wear a black top you look severe and unfriendly compared to when you wear a color or even white. If you are female and over 40, this is doubly true. 

If you wear your dark hair long it will blend into your top, which makes you just one big black form from the waist up. If your skin is light, and you wear a black top it makes you look paler by comparison. Plus you run the risk of looking like a "talking head." If you have dark skin you can really end up looking like one, big, dark shape. 

Luckily there is an immediate and quick fix. Simply start wearing lighter or more colorful tops. Even a bright scarf, necklace or necktie will help. You will instantly look younger and friendlier. After you give up the ominous black look, you will become more approachable. You may even feel lighter! 

Color counts. Stay tuned for more on the color black.

5 Deadly Reasons that Black is Killing You – Part 1

The color black is as serious as they come. It’s the official color of death, funerals and dangerous spiders. Black is also the color of cool, sophistication and skimpy cocktail dresses.

As teens and young adults, when we wanted to be older and cooler than we really are, we wore black. It looked great. We bought more.

If you’re like me, you bought black shoes to go with black pants to go with black tops to go with black jackets. Whether it was workout time or meeting time, it was all black all the time.

And then one day I looked in the mirror and Morticia was looking back at me, well Morticia if she were blonde and had short hair. In any case, it was suddenly evident that I needed to re-evaluate my color choices. Which uncovered the following painfully obvious  truth.

Deadly Reason #1: Black hasn’t changed, but you have.
In youth black makes you look older. In middle age, black makes you look older. 

Color counts. Stay tuned for more on the color black.