Designing Accessibly - All Things Color
Hello DesignA11Y Subscribers!
First I want to apologize for my absence, this was meant to be a monthly newsletter and I dropped the ball a bit getting regular content out. But, I'm back and ready to share some goodies with you.
This months theme is "Color", one of my most loved topics. Color for a designer sets the visual foundation for everything, it evokes the tone of design, conveys mood, energy, can imply an era or time and sometimes reinforces meaning. In the world of accessible design color is one of the most commonly violated criteria requirements. Two common WCAG criteria that I see fail are color contrast and use of color alone. We also need to understand as designers what things look like to others with vision differences like color blindness, understand the cultural references and meanings colors have and understand how colors can create a sense of comfort or stress and anxiety.
The business of color is a fully loaded one, colors can be critical in identifying brands. Many companies trademark colors, I have seen colors be the topic of lawsuits.
The Role of Color in Brand ID
A brands color palette is the root of their identity. In many cases the color itself represents the brand. It sets the tone and vibe of the brand, often can be indicative of the category the brand conducts business in and can be an important tool in connecting with the target customer/audience.
In many cases just by the color, you can identify the brand
Color Swatches - in a rainbow - without company logos
How did you do? Are you able to associate the brand with the color swatch. This should reinforce why color is so important to many brands and when someone says to a brand manager or brand creative that there is a problem with their colors, they are often met with resistance.
So lets take a look at who these logo-less brands are...
Color Swatches - in a rainbow - with company logos
Now that we understand the importance of color in brand identity, what happens when you are creating a color palette from the ground up, or revising a palette. I work with companies all the time to help them get their color palettes accessible. I also give a workshop on Accessible Color Palettes, check out more about that here.
The Future of Color
I wanted to see what would happen if I used AI to create a color palette. Could this be a shortcut for designers?
Now if you aren't ready to try using AI to generate color palettes, here are some resources that are my favorite tools to use to when I am feeling creatively blocked.
