Truth in Color
Or, why does my stuff look different on screen versus on paper? Every designer searches for "truth in color," whether it's finding the right blue to evoke feelings of trust and stability or choosing a green that says a company is forward thinking, environmentally-aware, but also serious, not playful. Recently I was working on a project that was governed by a pre-existing corporate style guide. For those who don't know, corporate standards, graphic standards, brand guidelines and similar descriptors, refer to a document that delineates important aspects of a company's image. Some of the elements it usually addresses include use of the logo; fonts for print and web; graphic elements such as bands and gradients and shapes (such as rounded corners instead of sharp ones); whether the corporate style is to use illustrations versus photos, and corporate/secondary/tertiary color palettes. During the course of working on this project, the client noticed how differ...
