The Super Simple Secret of Values

When signs or other graphics are hard to read it is often because the VALUE of the colors are too similar.

 Value is a term used to describe the lightness or darkness of colors.

 If you take a color image and convert it to a gray scale image you can easily see what the values of the color are. The same is true when you make a B&W xerox copy of a color page.

 When signs or other graphics are hard to read it is often because the value of the colors used are too similar.

 Look at the example above. You can see they have used two very different colors – red and blue. When the photo of the sign is converted to a gray scale image (the image on the bottom) you can see how similar the grays are.

 If you keep this super simple concept of values in mind when you are putting together your next document, flyer or presentation it will be more attractive and much easier to read.

It is all a matter of lightness and darkness!