David Kirkby Did an excellent talk on the imact of Colour on design for http://fesuffolk.co.uk on 28 May 2012

1. #ff0000, #ffffff & #0000ff
Monday, 28 May 2012
Title

2. Who am I and why am I here?
Monday, 28 May 2012
I studied art and design, tried to get into VFX and then worked in video and DTP before web. I like painting, colours,
art, texture and long walks in the moonlight but the police have put me under a curfew after the last time.

3. white - clean, sterile, perfection
red - anger, passion, sexual
green - decay, health, nature
blue - cold, healthy, knowledge
orange - deceit, aggression, action
yellow - sickness, richness, caution
black - moody, serious, evil
Snooooore....
Monday, 28 May 2012
Pink was a manly colour up to the 1900s as it was close to red
Virgin Mary wears blue in paintings as it was more feminine
White was the colour of mourning for medieval queens
Purple - over 70% prepubescent children preferred purple

4. Red
South Africa - mourning
Green
China - infidelity
Purple
Thailand - mourning
Black
East - Wealth
Monday, 28 May 2012
Cultural differences around the world. Be careful when selecting colours

5. Monday, 28 May 2012
Cave paintings. Primative man slapping paint around on a bit of stone but it was a form of communication.

6. Monday, 28 May 2012
Age of target audience is important
Children like big, bold, primary colours, adults tend to go for more subtle tones
(frakking Disney go and stick in muted colours on CP homepage just to throw a spanner in the works)

7. Monday, 28 May 2012
RGB - Additive colours. They are emitted from monitors/TVs/projectors/glowing thingy’s and are projecting colour.
Websites will use RGB for graphics

8. Monday, 28 May 2012
RGB - additive. ooooo purty. Its like some cosmic ride maaaaaaan.
We can see the colours blend together to make different colours

9. Monday, 28 May 2012
CMYK - Subtractive colours. Used in print and called subtractive because light hits the colour and all of it is absorbed
except for that colour

10. Monday, 28 May 2012
CMYK - being all subtractive n sheeet

11. Monday, 28 May 2012
RGB and CMY put together

12. Monday, 28 May 2012
oooo it’s a colour wheel

13. Monday, 28 May 2012
If we extend the colour wheel into 3d space we can see this
All colours can be expressed with HSV (aka HSB)
Hue Saturation Value/Hue Saturation Brightness

14. Hue
Monday, 28 May 2012
Hue Laurie. ho ho ho.

15. Monday, 28 May 2012
Hue is the colour (inc shades) of colour. When we say red, green, blue etc... we mean the hue
In the visible spectrum there’s no brown, pink or magenta

16. Monday, 28 May 2012
Jean Capeinick - Nature morte aux oranges et citrons
Predominate hues are yellow and orange

17. Monday, 28 May 2012
Benjamin Williams Leader - A Welsh Cornfield
Uses primary colours (red, yellow and blue) as well as green

18. Saturation
Monday, 28 May 2012

19. Monday, 28 May 2012
Cristofano Allori - Judith with the head of Holofernes
Rich artists could afford more saturated paints

20. Monday, 28 May 2012
Jehan Georges - The fortune Teller
This shows contrast between Saturation and value. The eye will linger longer on the white in the middle, the red
robes will draw the eye but the main focus is the teller.

21. Value
Monday, 28 May 2012

22. Monday, 28 May 2012
Value - Brightness of the colour
Although I’ve used black here it could be any colour

23. Monday, 28 May 2012
Goya - The shooting of May 3rd 1808
Very high value in the main figure and he is surrounded by dark/low value
Its helping to make him ‘pop’ as the main focus of the image

24. Monday, 28 May 2012
Painter wheel with HSV

25. Use of colour on the web
Monday, 28 May 2012

26. Monday, 28 May 2012
2nd time showing
Going to refer back to the fact kids like big colours

27. Monday, 28 May 2012
Readability

28. Monday, 28 May 2012
“undesign” trend http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/undesign-portfolio-website/
Still has colour but used sparingly.

29. Monday, 28 May 2012
Branding
Blue, white and Yellow. All used within the logo and replicated across the site.

30. Monday, 28 May 2012
Branding

31. <---------------- Whaaaaaa?
Monday, 28 May 2012
FAIL!

32. Monday, 28 May 2012
Navigation and grouping

33. Monday, 28 May 2012
Well sorted layout. Reflects the same look as their physical versions as web design/layout is based on print

34. Monday, 28 May 2012
All broadsheets use colour for sections. Helps with navigation and area identification
The Guardian even colours its own logo but sport and 2012 are both green
Branding confusing? Not really, they rely on the text to convey the brand

35. Monday, 28 May 2012
Vibrant. Strong colours to be eye catching

36. Monday, 28 May 2012
Overuse of strong colours to be eye catching
Tabloids try to be your friend

37. Monday, 28 May 2012
Very serious papers by golly
Pink on the FT to reflect its physical paper

38. Monday, 28 May 2012
No colours other than the rather strange ones used on rollovers
Vhaat is dat orange dat the WSJ is vearink, darlink?

39. Accessibility
Monday, 28 May 2012
...and I quote “If colour alone is used to convey information, people who cannot differentiate between certain colours
and users with devices that have non-colour or non-visual displays will not receive the information. When foreground
and background colours are too close to the same hue, they may not provide sufficient contrast when viewed using
monochrome displays or by people with different types of colour deficits.”

40. Monday, 28 May 2012
Colourblindness
Common in men - about one in 20
Far fewer women - around one in 200
This graphic is from the Ishihara test to determine colour blindness

41. <---------------- Whaaaaaa?
<---------------- Double whaaaaa?
Monday, 28 May 2012
colour contrast fail! The text is too damn hard to read. While they may not feel that the statement of ownership is not
important, its still information that is hard to read. Someone may actually want to read what it says.

42. Monday, 28 May 2012
Tools to aid with colour accessibility
http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html

43. Don't rely on colour alone
www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-without-colour.html
Monday, 28 May 2012
another quote “Colour is an important asset in design of Web content, enhancing its aesthetic appeal, its usability, and its accessibility. However, some users have difficulty perceiving colour. People with
partial sight often experience limited colour vision, and many older users do not see colour well. In addition, people using text-only, limited-colour or monochrome displays and browsers will be unable to
access information that is presented only in colour.”

44. Monday, 28 May 2012
In conclusion, colour is a very important part of design. Its emotional, it can convey meaning but it can also be
abused.
Good grief, thats vague isn’t it?

45. Monday, 28 May 2012
Any questions? (I hope not)