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Bottom line is: when you find #000000 in your color picker, ask yourself if you really want pure black. You’re probably better off with something more natural. And if you’re feeling adventurous, try staying away from the left edge of the color picker altogether. It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.
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I can't say I understand most of his reasoning...then again, I'm not a designer. Personally, I like things to have black backgrounds, it makes things stand out without the need to burn white backgrounds into my retinas.
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lewax00 wrote: I can't say I understand most of his reasoning
He explained it quite clearly I have to say.
Wout
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The clarity of his explanation isn't the problem, the problem is it just doesn't make sense to me. Don't use black because it's not natural? Neither is a computer screen, or most of the things displayed on it. (Ever see a Start bar wandering around on it's own, detached from a computer? Not likely.) Especially when his example is the work of a single painter, who is painting scenes that can be found in the real world. It's apples and oranges.
modified 10 Aug '12 - 10:05.
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Well it does make sense. Perhaps a screen is not natural, but your eyes and your brains are, so the designer should attempt to design things such that they are pleasant and easy on the eye and brain. The screen is just a medium, it could just as well be paper, T-shirt, or a painting as the author showed. In painting using blue in shadows is actually very common, it is not just this one painter that does this. Just that one example is shown, doesn't mean other painters do not do this. The reason they do this is that there is actually more blue in shadows. This is because the sky is blue, and where direct sunlight doesn't hit a spot, the blue light from the sky will.
There's nothing against using high contrasting bright colors at the extreme ends of the spectrum, but it will tire the eye and brain. His way of picking optimal brightness/saturation values is quite intelligent. Going to either 0% or 100% would be very unsubtle. Things on the screen may not be natural things, but still they go through your eye and brain, and you can't get around how they work. E.g. sharp edges are less pleasant to look at than round edges. Sharp objects can possibly hurt you, so there is special circuitry in the brain to detect that. Bright high contrasting colored animals are usually very dangerous or poisonous.
Also most people don't have the brightness + contrast settings on a screen at 100%. Might be pretty to look at for perhaps 2 minutes, but after an hour your eyes would start to burn.
Wout
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wout de zeeuw wrote: Just that one example is shown, doesn't mean other painters do not do this. The reason they do this is that there is actually more blue in shadows. This is because the sky is blue, and where direct sunlight doesn't hit a spot, the blue light from the sky will.
The number of painters wasn't my point. How many computer screens are lit primarily by the sun & sky? It makes sense when painting a landscape or some other natural model, but again computers are not. Instead of trying to hide the differences by pretending one is the other, the uniqueness of the virtual environment should be embraced and utilized, not hidden away.
Also, even darker blacks can be found in nature. Have you ever been deep inside a cave system, where the sun doesn't reach, and turned off all artificial lights? That's much blacker than a computer screen will ever be (mostly because of the back light).
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Quote: lewax00 wrote: The number of painters wasn't my point.
It does appear so from:
Quote: Quote: Especially when his example is the work of a single painter
Hence the reaction about it not being one single painter's creation, but a general natural phenomenon.
Quote: lewax00 wrote: How many computer screens are lit primarily by the sun & sky?
The author is using examples to clarify a more general observation about how the brain interprets color. The point the author was trying to make, even when you think you're seeing black, or seeing gray, it is almost never a pure black or gray. So when making a design, the objective is using a generally color scheme to get a particular effect (e.g. appearing gray). He quite clearly demonstrates with examples how far you can deviate from pure greys while your brain still thinks the color is grey. So even when designing a grey theme it wouldn't be necessarily a good idea to limit oneself to the pure black and greys (just like painters do).
lewax00 wrote: Instead of trying to hide the differences by pretending one is the other, the uniqueness of the virtual environment should be embraced and utilized, not hidden away.
I don't see where the author is hiding or underutilizing color. He is doing quite the opposite, through understanding of perception of color he is intelligently choosing appropriate colors to achieve a certain effect, rather than limiting himself to pure black and greys.
Wout
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wout de zeeuw wrote: I don't see where the author is hiding or underutilizing color.
The title is "Design Tip: Never Use Black". Never. Not "avoid it in certain cases", not "use it when it's appropriate", but "never". He's saying to avoid using a section of the color space on computers simply because it isn't as natural as other choices. And I don't think that's correct. I'm not saying black is right for everything, but it does have very appropriate uses in a virtual environment.
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Apart from the word Tip suggestsing it's a guideline, the intention of the author is clearly to educate about the subtleties of black and greys. If you're going to take things very literal, never in the whole article he states to not use black because black is not natural. One of the things states is that pure black is very overpowering, but even then he does not conclude to not use it because of that. He merely states what effect a pure black has, and suggests that you take all this into consideration and make a choice based on that, as he summarizes at the bottom:
Quote: Bottom line is: when you find #000000 in your color picker, ask yourself if you really want pure black. You’re probably better off with something more natural. And if you’re feeling adventurous, try staying away from the left edge of the color picker altogether.
Wout
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OK. But the (not so) recent trend to display light grey text on a white background is disturbing. I wonder how many of these self-professed designers actually spend hours reading content styled this way. 
I don't care if it's black or white. But I care deeply that it's easy to consume.
/ravi
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