Natural Selections

Natural Selections: Colors Found in Nature and Interface Design is a concise article on what is possibly my favourite design element — colour. (For those of you who are not designers/artists of some description, and quite possibly some who are this may sound a bit mad). It’s also an element that clients are very wary with and almost always go with the *safe option, ie blue grey and predominantly white — maybe a smidggen of orange or red.

When clients come to me asking for a new web site or interface they have such bold ideas for being fresh and eye catching, something with a personality of it’s own. In the end all they seem to want is what’s *safe or what their competitor has with a slight twist. Colour is not something clients want to stuff up because it has such an immediate and emotional impact on how users see the company.

Yes sometimes safe colours are appropriate, but it seems to me that this IS the sole reason they are often used, leaving us with some bland unmemorable designs, almost indistinguishable from one site to the next.

*Safe, ie neutral light colours that won’t offend and in many cases don’t impress either.