The right colors?

When designing, a lot of people get worked up over colors. Like I mentioned in my last post about the University of Maryland, a lot of people got worked up a few years ago when the University of Oregon started using non-school colors (black, silver, and now carbon). The school colors of Oregon are green and yellow (gold in athletic terms). When talking to those like myself who are into sports uniforms and logos, color combinations mean something to us. We may like a color combination because the high school we went to had those colors. For me, all my schools we blue and some other color, (blue & yellow, blue and orange, blue and white). I like blue, but at times get sick of using blue because I use it at work because the city I work for, uses blue and likes to brand itself. Some people hate a color or combinations because of maybe who their high school rival was. I get that. What I don't get is the fact that people seem to get in their mind that you can't use colors because either they clash or because it's associated with a certain holiday.

I'm going to explain the holiday issue that baffles me. It's Christmas and the use of red and green. I don't know how many times I've heard someone utter the fact, "You can't use those because it's Christmas." People get so hung up on that one little fact that they won't even try different shades or tints (and I'll get into shades and tints in an upcoming post) of red and green. For example, a maroon with green looks fine and doesn't look like Christmas at all. Lime green and pure red are going to blind you, but don't look like Christmas either. It's funny because go out in nature and you'll see many plants using red and green and no one complains. Have you ever heard of a woman refusing to receive a red rose on Valentine's Day or any other day by saying, "I'm sorry. I can't accept this rose because red and green are Christmas colors." It sounds ridiculous, but there are are a lot of people out there that refuse to use red and green or hate that combination and think it looks ugly. If you look at a color wheel you'll see that red and green are opposite of each other and are complimentary colors which in simple terms mean they go together and are pleasing to the eye. Take a look at this color wheel and see which colors go together in harmony. The ones right next to each other and the ones across are best used together.





I also want to dispel a myth out there. There's this myth out there called, "Color Clash." It doesn't exist. It never has and it never will. There's no such thing. Santa and the Easter Bunny you might be able to prove, but "Color Clash" you will never be able to prove because it just doesn't exist. So when people say, "Color Clash" what do they mean? Truthfully, I don't know. It might be they don't like those two colors whether it be separately or together. That's possible. Or it might be that the colors are competing against each other. Color competition is a real thing. Usually this happens when using two bright colors right next to each other, or two colors of the same tone. Tone would be if you took black and white and divided them up equally into ten separate sections, each section would be a tone. You can do that with all colors. So if you have a 100% green next to a 100% yellow, it doesn't look good together as the intensity of both colors compete against each other. Yet if you take a light yellow and a darker green they look good together. Of course, if you were to use a darker color in combination with the pure green and yellow, such as black, then they'd be toned down a bit. I've given an example of each for you to visually understand.