My workout poster went from "can't read e" to "oh I get it" after I changed the background from dark grey to black.

I slapped together a quick exercise guide for my clients using a grey gradient background and navy blue text, and three people asked me if the font was actually supposed to look like a blurry mess, so I flipped it to pure black with bright yellow letters and suddenly everyone stopped squinting - anyone else had a color combo that seemed fine to you but was totally wrong for everyone else?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_sage14d ago

blurry mess" is pretty much the nicest way anyone could have told you that... I had a whole website once where I used dark red text on a black background and kept wondering why nobody could find the contact page. People probably thought I was running some kind of puzzle business instead of selling actual products. Yellow on black is basically the "stop squinting and read this" combo of the universe, so good call there. Sometimes you just need someone to tell you your design looks like a headache waiting to happen.

noraj7913d ago

People do this all the time without even realizing it. Like how some restaurants use dark moody lighting with tiny font menus, then get surprised when people take forever to order. Or when someone puts a gray button on a white website and wonders why nobody clicks it. The same thing happens with road signs sometimes, you ever notice how some are impossible to read at night? It's like designers forget the whole point is communication, not just looking cool. Once you start seeing it, you notice it everywhere, not just on screens but in real life too. Our brains just need that contrast to actually process information.