Designing across cultures

Tuesday’s Design Tip for Graphic Designers

We truly are a global world nowadays. Thanks to the internet, your designs may be seen around the world. You just don’t know who is looking at your work.

Friday’s post about the Absolut Vodka blunder really struck a chord with me.

As designers, there’s no longer such a thing as designing for 1 culture.

As designers we may be called upon to design across various cultures. Not only that, but our designs may be seen by different people, in different cultures. We just don’t know.

If you are designing for a culture other than your own, it may help to know how they are going to interpret things.

Things to consider when designing for all cultures:

1. Color symbolism: Each color is interpreted in different ways by culture.
2. Color combinations: Each culture will marry colors differently. Check out the trends.
3. Seek out designs from other cultures: How do they design? What elements do they use?
4. Historical references: Is there an event that happened you want to highlight or avoid? Will a historical translate into different cultures without negative connotations?
5. Names and slogans: Does it translate well into other languages? Does it have a negative connotation in other languages?
6. Cultural references and symbolism: Do these translate well too?

C O N C L U S I O N :

Most design and marketing blunders have been caused by not understanding culture and not thinking about their long term goals.

I remember the story of a GM car, the Chevrolet Nova. GM expanded in Latin America. Legend has it that the reason it sold very poorly is because no-va means “doesn’t go” in Spanish.

I can’t stress this enough: you have to keep in mind what your ultimate goal is. You always have to think long term. You have to think in terms of expanding and growth.

Technorati Tags: Color Theory, Design, Management, Marketing

Choosing your color scheme

Tuesday’s Design Tip for Graphic Designers

Choosing an appropriate color scheme for any designs is the first of 2 design decisions I make. I usually decide on the typography and on the color.

The combination of the 2 is what creates the tone for the piece.

How do I go about selecting a color scheme?

1. Who is the targeted audience for this piece?
2. Choose a style and theme for the design.
3. Decide what would be most appropriate.
4. Check out what the competition uses.
5. Determine if there is a pattern or a familiarity of colors used.
6. Choose one dominant color.
7. Pick 1 or 2 accent colors that would be used sporadically.

C O N C L U S I O N :

The color scheme you choose should be appropriate for your intended audience.

Consider this, if you are designing for children, you may opt for some primary colors. If you are designing for an older audience, this would NOT be appropriate.

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Technorati Tags: Branding, Color Theory, Design, Design Theory, Production

Factors affecting web colors

Wednesday’s Production Tip for Graphic Designers

One of the biggest differences in designing for the web versus print is the use of color. Since it’s a very visual medium, color on your web adds energy, interest, and life to your website. And unlike print, it doesn’t cost anything! Better still, you can use more of it!

However, adding color is one of the things that drives me crazy about designing for the web! Why? Because you never know what your audience is really looking at. This is true in terms of line breaks, resolutions, how big it looks and unfortunately color.

Things affecting how you view color:

1. Monitor brand
2. Type of monitor (laptop, desktop, or flat screen)
3. Screen resolution
4. Color quality
5. Platform (MAC / PC)
6. How the monitor is calibrated
7. Web browser used

Color your website: Things you can add color to:

1. Backgrounds
2. Font colors
3. Tables
4. Bullets
5. Links
6. “Highlight” text by adding a background color (I love yellow) to it!

Ways to specify color on the web:

1. By name: Specify the color by name (red, purple, blue, green, white, etc..) I never use this way because browsers interpret these differently.
2. Hexadecimal codes: I use this. Based on RBG, the first two letter/numbers are the red value, the next two are blue, and the last are green. Lowest hue: 00 vs highest hue: FF.
3. Indexed colors: When I first started designing, there were 216 “browser-safe colors” listed in Hex mode. These are common regardless of your monitor and browser type.
4. RGB: fairly recent, put in the RGB color value of the color

Where do you specify the color:

1. Hard code: when I first started designing, I would manually add the color to the code of the page
2. CSS: this is “Cascading Style Sheets”. It’s my preferred way of specifying color. I create a linked document listing all my fonts, sizes, weights, and colors and then in my document I add a “style” tag or select it while I design my page. It makes sure I remain consistent.

C O N C L U S I O N :

Color makes a huge difference between a bad design, a mediocre one, a good one, and a great one.

Learn all you can about color and how to use it properly. Notice how it appears on various monitor and adjust your designs accordingly. And know, it will probably drive you bananas!

Technorati Tags: Color Theory, Design, Design Theory, Production, Web Design

Color your designs properly

Tuesday’s Design Tip for Graphic Designers

I’m always constantly baffled that there are way more typography books than there are color books. Is color secondary to type? We always focus on how typography sets the tone for your piece. Color almost takes a back seat.

It should not be so, the wrong color can completely ruin a piece and turn off prospects.

Color in use: Factors for choosing color schemes

1. Appropriateness: Choose colors that are appropriate for your design’s concept and your audience.
2. Communicates a message: Select colors that supports the spirit of the company and brands it.
3. Enhance readability: Colors should make it easy and effortless to go through your layout.
4. Contrast: Never choose similar colors, always pick colors that are different enough from each other that they create impact. It will look like a mistake otherwise.
5. Color symbolism: Different colors have different meanings in different cultures. Who will be looking at your designs?
6. Don’t imitate, innovate: Don’t choose a trendy palette as it will go out of style soon enough. Or worse, your work will look like everyone else’s.

A few final color tips:

1. Always try the same design in a limited palette (1-2 colors) then in full. Does it still look good?
2. Analyze the use of colors by the competition. It can tell you a lot about what is currently being used and color philosophy.
3. Check out paper shows or visit a local printer. Talk about color and paper stock and how it affects printing.
4. Learn about paper stock, pre-press, printing technologies, inks, and varnishes.

C O N C L U S I O N :

Remember, the colors as they appear on the screen (digital) will look different than when you print it on paper (reflective).

Same goes for online design: your colors will look different on various monitors (it really does depend on the monitor and setup — but that’s a post for another day.)

FURTHER READING:

I wrote a post of the do’s and don’t of color theory. Read all about it here.

Technorati Tags: Color Theory, Design, Design Theory

Get out the sunglasses! Too many colors on a page

What I love about color is that it’s actually more complex than just choosing colors you like for your layout. It’s really about appropriateness. I like to use color to convey information and to facilitate communication.

Color is one of the three factors that sets the mood for your piece. Color stirs our emotions. When we look at a color, we feel something.

Frequently newbie designers use too many colors in their designs. This frequently leads to chaos, visual clutter and looks plain unprofessional (and gives me a headache just looking at it). Look at any professional design and you’ll see what I mean — they always work from a limited, focused color palette.

I usually use on average 2-3 colors (excluding pics and the color black) in my designs. I’m looking for focus and I like to create consistency by limiting my color palette. I don’t want to overwhelm and keep in mind that the cardinal for design is that it should never overpower your copy. Design should complement content.

Considerations in choosing color effectively and appropriately:

1. Psychological and cultural effect of colors
2. Readability and visual hierarchy
3. Complementary color combinations

Factors affecting color choice:

1. Psychology
2. Age group
3. Mood
4. Industry
5. Historical / Time / Context
6. Cultural perception
7. Color combinations
8. Technology (printing, paper, bindery and computer)

Making color work for you:

1. Use color to emphasize, highlight and direct the reader through your copy
2. Use color to organize and group information, like with like
3. Establish consistency by having titles and subtitles the same color
4. Differentiate information with color (such as in graphs and charts)
5. Trigger emotions and associations through effective color choice
6. Use color to create your visual hierarchy to your piece

C O N C L U S I O N

It’s been theorized that colors affects us within 90 seconds of seeing a color. You want to tap into that when designing.

Color sends messages about who we are and what to expect from us without any words. Used effectively, color can persuade readers to buy from you or trust what you have to say. Or not.

Technorati Tags: Color Theory, Design Theory

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