Once again, I am overhearing a conversation between a TSDG designer and a client about colour. (Or color, if you prefer).
So it's time for a color roundup. Most people, when looking at proofs are looking at them on a computer. A computer screen is backlit. When you are looking at a printed piece, the light is coming from behind you or above you so the colors are going to look different. That is only one way in which colors can look different ...
Colors will look different on different computers. Every browser is different. Yes, every single one. Somewhere, and I must find it one day, I have a photograph of two laptops, side by side, with the same web page on the screen - and the colors look very different.
Colors will look different depending on what other colors are around them.
Color will look different to a three year old than they will to a thirty year old, and they will look different again to a forty year old, a fifty year old, a sixty year old etc. etc.
Certain physical conditions (such as flu) will make people see colors differently. So it's possible for you to look at a color today, and then look at that same color in a few week's time after a bout of flu, and it will look different.
And don't forget all the people who have various color-deficiencies. 'Color-blind' people rarely see things in black and white (or grayscale), that's a very rare condition but there are several different types of color-blindness which affects people's ability to see blue or green or red or some other specific color. AND, those conditions have different degrees of severity.
So you can see that it's possible to take a random selection of fifty people, and each will see colors in different ways.
Does this make life difficult for the designer? No, actually. We've all been trained to understand these issues and, just to be sure, we have software which tests colors in a variety of ways. The difficulty we have is explaining this to clients!
Related topics:
Trying the impossible
See?
Color perception
Color notes
Design decisions
Testing testing
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.