We recently talked with Dave Robinson about his view on color as it pertains to his work at AOL.

LHC:    Hi Dave, thanks for taking time to tell us about your perspective on color and branding and webdesign.  

Dave:    I am design director of AOL.  And I work on the core properties.  So I work on the AOL.com, and the first line products like My AOL, feeds, favorites, and stuff like that…personalization and stuff.  

LHC:    So getting right into things, do you think that color has become a more important design lever within website design?  

Dave:    Well, yeah.  I think color and website design has always been kind of really funny, because initially it started out really garish and with not a lot of options because you are dealing with a web safe color palette.  And that was largely due to operating system constraints. So you were always limited to this 256 color palette.  You really couldn’t move beyond that and choose other colors.  The magic color chooser of the web, back in the day, chose all these bright, garish, sort of neon type colors.  Today, we live in a different world where you can basically…any color you can think of you can display on the screen.  Because operating systems are capable of millions of billions of…showing millions of colors now.  And as far as it applies to, let’s say, designs today, I think it’s getting a lot more sophisticated.  And these, you know, web 2.0 companies as they are referred to, are…they are using a lot of colors that were traditionally never used online, like browns, and pinks, and other colors like that.  So I tend to think that the color palette is getting softer and a little more sort of, I don’t know, accessible and tasteful in terms of design.  

LHC:    So when you select colors for your products…your properties, is there a brand color palette that you have to live by, certain color language that you speak at AOL?  

Dave:    Well, I think it’s interesting. AOL does have a color palette that is in our style guide that outlines the attributes of the brand.  But a lot of that stuff is really just turning into more of a guide rather than a hard and fast rule.  AOL has divided itself up into different business units, and design isn’t coming from one centralized location any more.  They are coming from different vertical business units.  And you are seeing a lot of variance in the design now.  AOL has always been really bright and vibrant with their designs… almost to a fault.  We are seeing designers at AOL be given the freedom to explore new color palette.It also has to do with, meeting business goals, requirements and metrics.  And some of the color palettes that were chosen when the brand was created and have been modified slightly, over time.  The (inaudible) has to be scannable, and, you know, things needs to be easy to find, easy to click on, and these pages are chock so full of content that it’s hard to find anything, so color really plays an important role in terms of discoverability and scannability on a page.  

LHC:    How else is color used as a strategic tool in differentiation?  

Dave:    It is pretty critical, there are core AOL colors that are, define brand attributes.  If you look at AOL on the web today, you will see that it’s awash in blue. AOL has taken the stance that they own blue, just like YAHOO! owns purple and Google owns blue links.  And, that’s the old AOL.  what we are designing now, with AOL today, is the new AOL.  We are trying to move AOL to be less of a access type brand, somewhere of a content pure advertising driven, free content kind of thing on the web, so we are modifying our color palette quite a bit.  We are moving into grays, and blues, and greens, and stuff that makes pages scannable.  So we are taking a pretty far leap away from the traditional AOL blue that has, been so overused on the web and overused on AOL in particular.  

LHC:    Just out of curiosity, when you actually choose colors for your products.  Is it just left up to the whim of the designer?  Or is it a matter of trial and error?  Where do you go for inspiration and trying to find something new, or different, or interesting, that allows you to differentiate and sort of attract users’ attention for discoverability?  

Dave:    Well, a lot of stuff is pretty defined.  Like the standard metaphor for a link on a website is blue.  So what we have done at AOL is we have identified the color of blue that we want our links to be.  We are not reinventing the wheel.  A link is blue, and that’s it.  And no other text on the page is blue otherwise it’s confused as the link.  

LHC:    So for everybody, blue is the universal link language?  

Dave:    Blue is the universal link language, but that doesn’t mean all links are blue.  You’ll go to many, many sites where links are many, many different colors.  As long as it is standard across your site, you are going to find success.  AOL is a very traditional and large of web company.  It’s very large web company, obviously.  And we are not reinventing the wheel.  We know what works and we are going to continue to do that.  But as far as other colors go, we do a lot of testing, a lot of usability testing.  As far as scannability goes, we do some kind of focus group testing, but we don’t rely a lot on focus group testing.  It’s really difficult to gauge success, but AOL designers are pretty much free to sort of explore different color options for their different units that they are building.  Like if you are building a sports site on AOL, and, you know, sports typically have a lot of red color in it.  But you don’t want to use red, you want to use green instead, then you are free to explore that color.   

LHC:    Just for those people that don’t understand, people like myself, when you say scannability, what does that mean?  

Dave:    Having a page be easily scannable means that when you look at a page, and you quickly scan it with your eye, like you do when you get a newspaper.  You get a newspaper, and you scan the headlines for interesting things you want to read and something catches your eye, and you read the article.  The webpage are the same thing.  You quickly scan a webpage, and the things that catch your eye are the things that are going to move you to click on those links.  Increasing scannability is a huge thing when you are driving traffic from site to site to site, and driving traffic from site to site to site increases the amount of ad revenue you got, which increases the amount of money you make.

LHC:    How do you test scannability for like a page design?  

Dave:    Well, there is lots of ways to do it.  Some of the ways to do it, there is heat mapping software out there, software that looks at where your eye looks on the page.  So you can find out where people are actually looking on your page, and how people are scanning your page.  If they are scanning from left to right or top to bottom, or something like that.  

LHC:    That’s cool.  

Dave:    also there are some pretty standard conventions and wisdom around, scannability too.  Like if there is photographs on the page, people always look at photographs first.  And if there is bigger fonts, people look at bigger fonts first.  Eyes quickly go to things that are most easily personable.  

LHC:    So out of images, type size, graphics, and all that kind of stuff, where does color fit into that sort of scannability as far as it’s kind of important at drawing the users’ attention?  

Dave:    Well, the link color is the component of the webpage that draws the click.  And web pages are there to be consumed and clicked on.  That’s their primary purpose in life is to be able to consume the content, if it’s a content page, or clicked on to drive traffic to other pages.  Or if it’s more of a content specific pages or product page, the blue link is the trigger that makes you easily understand that this is the link in my mail application that says, “Oh, this is a new mail message.”  And I can read that by clicking on it.  

LHC:    In that case color is the key to people visually identifying where to click.

Dave:    Right.  

LHC:    What do you think is the biggest challenge web designers are facing with color online nowadays, now that you can do any color you want?  

Dave:    I think the biggest challenge is using color responsibly.  It’s so easy to be inconsistent with color on the web as a designer, because there is so many different components, like there is so many different sort of icons and different markers that have a definition, and they are different colors?  So, if they are different colors, do they mean different things.  Thus consistency, is a huge challenge, it’s something that isn’t very well done, that a lot of people think of consistency as something that is a nice to have, not a have to have.  
Like, you know, one of the areas that I think is a definite must-have is, the consistency on your page is just about as important as the usability of the page itself.   

LHC:    Do you have sites that you go to for color inspiration, or to choose colors, or look at color palettes, or online color tools.  I know there is like a bunch of them out there.  Do you use any of those tools?  

Dave:    I do when I need to research that kind of stuff.  But I don’t specifically have one that I go to.  Generally, if I decide that the header of my new product that AOL is going to be French Gray color and I want to find complementary colors to that, I’ll just go on the web, and I’ll start searching for, color tools and stuff, and look up French Gray.  What does French Gray mean?  What does it mean if I put it on my page?  Does it have a negative connotations in China?  Because we are such a global portal that we are designing for all over the world, does it have negative connotations in China?  If it does, what does it mean? Is it scalable?  Can I use it across multiple products, or am I just boxing myself into a corner?   

LHC:    Did you actually find information online about the associations of French Gray and different cultures? 

Dave:    No, I haven’t found that yet.

LHC:    Are you frustrated by the lack of information online about color in different cultures?  

Dave:    I am.  

LHC:    Well maybe I can help you out with that part.  

Dave:    Yes, it’s funny because we just designed AOL.com’s China portal for AOL.com in Chinese.  So it’s for Chinese people living in the United States.  So it’s not for AOL in China.  It’s AOL Chinese.  And red worked really well.  Then we were asked to design a portal for India.  What we did was take the sort of portal template that we used for China, and we imported it over to India, and a lot of the red stayed.  We didn’t think anything of it.  When we had our development team in India look at the mock-ups of the portal site, they absolutely freaked out.  They said, “If you use that red, you are sunk, because red here in India is widely regarded as a very negative.”  So as we all know different cultures react very differently to color.  Like in the U.S. if you use red it’s sort of like stock, nobody really reacts negatively to it.  People paint their living rooms red.  But if you went to India and somebody had a red living room, your neighbors would probably burn your house down.

 
LHC:    What color did you end up using in India?  

Dave:    Lots of greens, browns and very vibrant colors.  

LHC:    Do you have another example of another color that went into another culture that didn’t work?

 
Dave:    We are building out the portal for all of the E.U.  So there is many different countries that we are importing this over to.  I am not directly working on the color palettes for those things, but we are cognizant of it and doing all of that research.

LHC:    Well, you know, we did…I don’t know if this helps or not, but we did that global study for the pharma industry with regards to drugs in 12 countries.  We did a number of countries, in the E.U., Germany, Spain, England, Italy, and France.  As you suspect there is a lot of fragmentation with regards to color, and the associations.  Most people think they are pretty similar, because they are all in the same part of the world.

 
Dave:    It’s really funny that they are so close, and they are so different.  

LHC:    They really are different.  For instance, weird things would emerge, Italy would align with India, the U.K. aligns with Canada, and Canada does not align with the U.S., which was really interesting.  Most people would have thought that Canada and the U.S. would be the same.  

Dave:    Correct.  

LHC:    Thanks for the chat, it is really interesting how color is becoming such a strong component of your work.  

Handmade Color born out of a Passion for Color

We recently had the pleasure of talking to Kate Smith about her newest adventure -  Sensational Color

Listen to our conversation

LHC: Hi Kate, it's Leslie Harrington calling.  How are you today?

Kate: Good thanks.  How are you?

LHC: Good.  I wanted to start by asking you if you could just introduce yourself to our audience and let us know what it is that you do and what's interesting you these days.

Kate: I'm Kate Smith.  I'm a color consultant, also a member of the Color Marketing Group and currently in addition to working with corporate clients I've started a website called Sensational Color.  

LHC: Oh that sounds so interesting. Sensational Color isn't something new to me it may be new to some of the other people out there, but I am just in love with what you are doing so that was one of the reasons I wanted to touch base and find out more about Sensational Color. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got started?

Kate: Sure but first of all thank you for that nice compliment Leslie.  I really appreciate that especially coming from someone that has the type of knowledge you have about color but to explain why I started Sensational Color let me take it up to sort of a 30,000 foot view first and then really quickly drop back down to exactly what we are doing today.

What I saw was a shift that was taking between business and consumer.  Rather than being passive individuals have become much more actively engaged in the process of buying products and services and along with that there came a much greater expectation of choice.

And as businesses have responded where In the past companies simply asked people to watch and listen, then passively consume by selecting from a limited number of options.  Today of course advances in technology have made it possible for companies to give consumers many, many more options in just about any color imaginable.

So the good news is that we now have more choices…the bad news is that we now have more choices…

LHC: Right

Kate: …and this is really a good news and bad news scenario that applies to both business and consumers.  So while most people could see the upside what I saw was that what comes along with more choice is also the burden of having to make those choices wisely.

So let me bring this down a bit closer to earth and what that means for businesses…

As you know surveys show that consumers place a high level of importance on the color of a product and that in fact color is often a key factor in their purchasing decisions.  In addition studies have shown that customers are likely to decide where they will purchase a product based on being able to get it in a particular color they want so with just those couple of examples and as you know there are many more…I think just about anyone can begin to understand why getting color right is serious business with potentially far-reaching implications.

And in fact this is exactly why companies seek out people like you and I that can share our expertise to help them understand color and that goes beyond just color trends.  They want to understand the intrinsic messages and meanings associated with color, the cultural significance, color directions but what I think most importantly they are looking for is how to apply that information specifically to their business.

LHC: Yes, I know that and I totally agree.  Some of the studies that you are referring to say that actually 60% of that decision…the purchase intent decision…is actually based on the colors.  So I mean that is pretty significant and when you think that a lot of companies at one point in time were basing color decisions sort of on the like or dislike, or personal preference of maybe the CEO or the CEO's wife it's hard to believe that something that is so key to a product was not given the same attention that so many other product attributes are.

Kate: You know I absolutely agree.  It does seem like when you think of it in those terms it does seem funny but it just came out of a lack of knowledge of how important it was.  Luckily people are discovering and companies are discovering more and more the impact and the power of color.  Which gets me back to your original question which is why I launched the website…

In fact I've had many people ask me why when companies are willing to pay me nicely to share the information I would put it out on the web for anyone to access and really the short answer is…because the great value that we bring as experts or consultants is not just in the information itself but the knowledge of how to specifically apply that information. I don't think that it will replace their need for our expertise and if anything it may even make them see more clearly why they need our help.

LHC: I think so.  Now do one of the things it that I think that gets confusing for companies is that the information that is out there on the web or maybe in books is full of what I call folkloric or even to some degree rhetoric.  So for instance it say that red makes you eat more but for the most part we just take that as a truth but do we really know that red makes you eat more or is there actually scientific proof.  So one of the questions I have for you is how do you find your information and do you have some secret source?

Kate: Yes [laughing] I sort of do and I think Leslie obviously as you recognize having recently completed your PhD that maybe better than most the amount of study that goes into being able to understand and use color effectively.

My goal in launching Sensational Color was certainly to share good information and not the folklore and point to examples of how color is being used so that business people and individuals can quench what seems to be an ever growing thirst for color knowledge and in fact sharing all of that… why I started Sensational Color is that there is a strong value in getting many points of view heard and that is why my secret source for the information is people like you and my other color colleagues who have contributed their expertise in the way of articles and editorials and part of my strategy is to continue to seek out the "best of the best".

LHC: So you're tapping into the expert source for knowledge that exist not sort of relying on just published documentation.

Kate: No, I fact and I definitely think there is too much information for any single person to know everything there is to know about every aspect of color and so I am looking people that have…we all have our areas of expertise to bring that knowledge forward.

LHC: Now one of the things I know we had talked about offline that you are introducing is teleseminars.  Can you talk a little bit more about what exactly your Teleseminar series is about and who would be interested?

Kate: Sure.  Well initially what I was able to offer our fellow color experts was limited to sharing information that could be published in written form but in April we are launching an "Access to Experts" Teleseminar series and how that will work is it will be an interview.

I'll be interviewing many individuals about their area of [color] expertise.  I'll be doing it over the telephone and I'll offer a call in line so that anyone that would like to join us live on the call can call in and listen in.  The kind of interesting thing that I've added to this is that a person registers, when they register for the call to get the call in number they will be able to go online and ask what I like to call "their most burning question" for that particular guest.

Then when I interview or when I review all of the questions and put together a list that I'll be asking the expert to it will help me to make sure that I'm asking the questions that are on the minds of our audience.

So I'll have the call recorded and will make it available for replay or download from the site for someone that isn't able to get on during the live call.

LHC: That's great.  Now are you targeting teleseminars at consumers or are you doing sort of different levels so that you would have more of the expert level for say peer-to-peer type of conversations as well.

Kate: Well we are really going to cover both because both of those are our target audiences so we'll be covering aspects of color that will be of interest to the business community, business people and at that level but we'll also cover areas of color that will be of interest to individuals as well.  Which kind of reminds me that I wanted to mention why I decided to put information on Sensational Color for consumers as well as the professional audience.

As I shared earlier when you have more options you also have more choices and I want to provide individuals as well with solid, easy to access information that would allow them to have the skills and knowledge to make color decisions not just that they can live with but ones that reflect who that they are and how they want to feel.

So ultimately goal is to provide people with tools and information to acquire or expand their own as I call it "Color Know How" so that they can master those skills as they use color in all aspects of their life.  

LHC: I think that is a really great and important part of what you are doing because as companies move to become more customer-centric and understanding exactly what it is that their customer base is looking to know and understand about color you can actually help the dialogue between both the consumer and the company to understand how the company can sort of better give their customer the information they are looking for as well.

Kate: Yes, I hope so.  I hope that does become a big part of what the interaction directly with the consumers allows us to do.

LHC: So here's another question for you.  Can you give us some examples of topics you're going to be covering?

Kate: Certainly.  For the consumer audience I have several of the designers that will be speaking.  I have CJ Volk who founded Citron Paints is going to be speaking about her line of paints.

LHC: Yeah, she's great.

Kate: She is a lot of fun so I'm really looking forward to that.  Our very first Teleseminar that we are doing is scheduled for April 4th is going to be Ellen Kennon who founded Full Spectrum Paints and has had a lot of experience in the interior design community and again a lovely person.

LHC: Yes, I love her color palette.  It's great.

Kate: Yes, she has a fabulous way about her and the testimonials from her clients are unbelievable as well so both those two people I'm very excited about.

Of course Leatrice Eiseman is going to be speaking about More Alive With Color on April 11th and that's a special seminar for people that are…wanting an understanding of her system of the Colortimes.  And then what I am working on confirming right now are some of the more professional level calls that we are going to be doing and hopefully you'll be one of those Leslie.

LHC: I would love to participate.  That would be really great.

Well I think that pretty much covers it.  Is there anything else that I should have asked you that I didn't ask you?

Kate: Hmmm, not that I can think of at the moment.  Sensational Color will continue to grow and evolve as people like you and I and others in the color field can expand the information that is available to offer and as we have or see a need for and as our business and consumer audience seem to have interest in but I'm thrilled to be able share this with you today.

LHC: Well thanks.  One of the things that I think is so wonderful about what you're doing and what I'm doing and some other people is that we really have sort of a collaborative mentality.  We had talked about this before but for me and I think also for you we share this kind of a…instead of a competition and more of a friendship alliance and so I'm looking forward to helping you grow your business and I hope and know that you are looking to help me grow my business so I think that it is just really great that we can actually have these kind of conversations be open and there is a level of transparency so together we can grow the entire knowledge base for you know that consumer and businesses.  

Kate: Yeah, I think that is very much the attitude that I have taken about it and I'm glad that you and I and luckily several of our other colleagues feel very open to that sharing and building that type of a relationship.

LHC: Well thank you again for joining us.  Again, I've been talking with Kate Smith founder of Sensational Color and if you want more information you can look up www.sensationalcolor.com online.

Kate: Thanks Kate so much Leslie

To learn more about kathryn and her work visit http://www.kathryndoherty.com/ 

Read more about How we See Red 

What color will you select?

Source: http://www.miniusa.com/#/build/configurator/mini-m 

We recently had the chance to talk with Michelle Lamb, founder of The Trend Curve about the role of color trends in business today.

Michelle:    So I am going to just get on my soapbox for a second about this.

LHC:    Please.

Michelle:    Because I know it’s not what you are looking for in this piece, but one of the things that I find, and I find it a lot, is when I work with product design and development teams, whether they are retail teams or they are manufacturing teams, is that somebody has got them corralled with restrictive travel budgets.  Now I don’t think that everybody needs to go everywhere.  And I see a lot of people at a lot of shows all over the country and all over the world, but I will say that it is darn tough to be creative in your cube with a magazine.  You have to have sources of inspiration and one of the things that I say repeatedly to my consultant clients and customers is, “Get out of your category.” And do something, get out of your office, get out of your category.  I don’t care if you are reading Cost Accounting Magazine…

LHC:    Yes, I agree just get out.  In addition Part of the cage that we get tangled in is the Internet.  It has opened so many virtual doors for designers to "get out" online but that is not the same kind of experience as walking the streets of New York.

Michelle:    It isn’t but it’s funny, you know, I talked to Susan Iverson this week, (link to Susan site) We talked about how there are a million trend people now, or a million trend resources.  But when I go and I look at some of these sites and I see who they are in their biographies they will say, “I love color.  I have always loved color and the fact that I do pedicures for a living, never mind about that.”  But one of the things that the Internet doesn’t do is give you a hierarchy of voices in terms of who is qualified to give an opinion. I am not sure you can get really great color information from a public website.

LHC:    So the question to your point is good enough, good enough anymore?

Michelle:    Right, and it cuts both ways.

LHC:    And for some companies maybe good enough is okay, but for many companies good enough doesn’t cut it anymore

Michelle:    It doesn’t, no, the bar has been raised too much!

 

 If you would like more information about Michelle and her work visit http://www.trendcurve.com

Also check out her blog Connecting the dots at http://michellelamb.typepad.com

Posted by Leslie on February 3, 2007 03:33 AM

When design makes a difference - everyone takes notice 

Target once again shows how color becomes a critical componet in design 

Sourcs: http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/page.jsp?title=pharmacy_home&PATH=0 

What is your Blue Zone?

Navigate your way to a long and healthy life with the Blue Zones Vitality Compass

An ongoing project that is part of Quest Network, Inc.—co-funded by the National Institute on Aging and National Geographic—Blue Zones™ studies the world’s longest-lived populations for information and lifestyle characteristics that can help people live longer, better lives.

Knowing how our lifestyle habits affect our longevity is a great tool in making day-to-day choices. That's why we designed the Blue Zones Vitality Compass�, an interactive tool for calculating longevity and visualizing the impact of our lifestyle choices.

As you answer each of the given questions, the Compass will use advanced algorithms, calculated from years of medical research, to determine which of your habits are bringing you into your Blue Zones. Click on the start button to see what the Blue Zones Vitality Compass� has to say about your lifestyle!

Check to see if you are in the Blue Zone using the Blue Zone Compass

Source: Blue Zone 

We recently Interviewed Robyn Waters on the Future of Color in Business

"When I got my I-pod mini, it happened to be pink.  I didn’t want silver, I didn’t want green. I had to be pink" - Robyn Waters

In 1993, Mars ran a promotion in which consumers were invited to vote on which of blue, pink, or purple would be introduced. Blue was the winner, and with the removal of tan, it was added in early 1995.

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/m-m-s 

(PRODUCT) RED  http://www.joinred.com/default.asp

Created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA, the charity aims to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund by teaming up with the world's most iconic brands to produce PRODUCT RED branded products.

Proceeds from the sale of each PRODUCT RED product are donated to The Global Fund, where funding goes to help women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2134