EXAMPLES • Full Color

Foreground-background contrast Two colors on a background

A large difference in value (darkness) between the foreground color The two foreground colors must differ in value with the
and the background color increases readability. background and differ in hue with each other.

A A ✔
A A ✔
normal text
highlight ✔
normal text
highlight ✔

A A ✔
A A ✔
normal text
highlight ✔
normal text
highlight ✔

A A ✔
A A ✔
normal text
highlight ✔
normal text
highlight ✔

A A ✔
A A ✘
normal text
highlight ✔
normal text
highlight ✔

A A ✔
A A ✘
normal text
highlight ✔
normal text
highlight ✔

A A ✔
A A ✘
normal text
highlight ✘
normal text
highlight ✘

Difference in value is much more Tints and type

important that difference in hue.
For sharp, colored type printed on a four-color printer, pick
colors with a solid tint of at least one of the printer’s four colors.
Some colors tend to get darker on ✘ ✔ ✔✔
actual size and
black-and-white copy machines. 5X enlargements:

30%M 30%M + 100%C 100%M + 100%C

Some colors tend to disappear on
black-and-white copy machines.
Use solid colors for type – tints and shades
don’t work as well. In text sizes, bold sans
Some pairs of colors vibrate and serif fonts stand up best to four-color
✘ printing. Avoid coloring very small text.
make reading very, very difficult.
 Xerox • Documents at Work

Functional families A A
B
Various hues of similar saturation are good for B C
coding qualitative differences.
sales territories C

1995 1996

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

• • •
• • •
Various tints or shades of a single hue are good for • • •
coding quantitative differences (magnitude), as in the • • •
green map.
They can also code secondary qualitative differences
when hues code primary qualitative differences, as in
the array of pie charts.
1995 1996 (2001)

per capita consumption

Europe x y

Asia

Africa

Word and image Seeing double

Text over an image can be difficult to read. Consider placing Use a secondary system of coding to retain meaning in a
text in a box if it needs to be closely associated with an image. black-and-white copy or for color-blind individuals. Cop
y th
in b is she
✘ ✔ w lack
a
et
hite nd
wh , and s
at h
The quick brown fox jumps ✘ to t appen
ee
he c s
olor
.

✘ ✔ ✔✔ A B

The quick brown fox jumps ✔ C

A A
B B
C C