
Design Tip: Never Use Black - ivolo
http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
======
incongruity
As someone with professional experience in photography and a masters in design
– I think this piece is seriously lacking.

First – the photo that is used as "evidence" caught my eye quickly because it
is clearly poorly processed/improperly exposed. There is no black point and
that's a _bad_ thing for the image; which leads me to say – you can't make the
sweeping generalization that black is always bad. It's not – and the work of
one pop art painter and a bad bit of photography isn't substantiated proof.

If you want to actually make something meaningful out of this, you'd actually
push hard on the idea that too much contrast is a bad thing. Black isn't bad.
Heavy contrast can be. Instead, get down to the root reasons that we have
issues with contrast – in short, we're wired to notice _differences_ in color
or brightness than we are for _absolute_ values of color or brightness. As
such, it's not about one color, it's about the contrast.

Check out Jeff Johnson's Designing with the Mind in Mind:
[http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Mind-Simple-Understanding-
In...](http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Mind-Simple-Understanding-
Interface/dp/012375030X) or Colin Ware's Visual Thinking for Design:
[http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Thinking-Kaufmann-
Interactive-T...](http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Thinking-Kaufmann-Interactive-
Technologies/dp/0123708966/)

Both of those do a much better job at explaining the hows and whys of the
average person's visual perception.

~~~
ohgodthecat3
I think he took the wrong message away from his art teacher as I was taught
the same thing.

But it was in regards to representing realistic things with paints. As he says
shadows usually aren't truly black and painting with a dark blue as your
darkener is usually a better idea.

You can use black but when you use it in paintings to darken colors or for
your regular darks it regularly stands out to the viewer, black is supposed to
be used in very limited quantities in artistic works. (Hell half the time
people recommend not buying black paint when starting out but to mix other
colors to create a black looking color[1])

This doesn't really switch over to apps and other things as they don't
represent any realism but instead try to allow us to focus on specific things
which black can be useful.

His example image with a big black square dominating the others is a terrible
example and would be better if the bottom was a representation of the layout
with black as the darkest color instead of the lighter greys and grey-blues.
And what we would see is more contrast but little change in distraction.

[1]:
[http://painting.about.com/od/colourtheory/a/JimMeadersBlack....](http://painting.about.com/od/colourtheory/a/JimMeadersBlack.htm)

~~~
gbog
I would be interested to know how Chinese classic painting fits in these
theories about blackness: it should represent something not to far from half
of all paintings ever produced by human beings and theories thereof, and as
far as I know its main mode is shades of black ink on white paper.

~~~
ohgodthecat3
I might have wrote a confusing comment accidentally. The don't use black
pretty much comes into play in realism and other art with how people perceive
the color black.

It is more realistic to represent shadows and blacks with dark colors as that
is what they are but we rarely see black.

Because Chinese painting is rather stylized in is specific way black is a
major factor, the same would go for things like comics and comic books and
other such things.

------
dsr_
Unless, you know, you want highly readable text. In which case there's nothing
better than pure black, as your text color or as your background (but not both
at once, please.)

~~~
crazygringo
No, that's the whole point of the article! Pure black text on a pure white
blackground is _too much contrast_ , which is uncomfortable for the eye over a
long period of time. It's bad for readability.

Use dark gray on white, or black on light gray, but don't use pure black on
pure white. It's too much.

Remember, the contrast between white and black on computer monitors is
_greater_ than on the printed page, because computer-monitor white is brighter
than a page usually.

The printed page only achieves this level of high-contrast when you're in
broad daylight, like on the beach. And of course, most people wear sunglasses
in that case, because it's too much.

(Of course, there are exceptions to every graphic design "rule", but avoiding
pure black text on a pure white background is pretty standard one for
webpages.)

~~~
mark-r
I find too many web pages go the other way and use a light gray for the text.
The text looks washed out. Too little contrast is as bad as too much.

~~~
CamperBob2
The risk when using grays instead of black and white is that what looks
perfectly readable on the writer's monitor may not look good at all on the
reader's. The more you rely on midtones, including grayscale-based design
choices, the more you are at the mercy of the end user's probably-completely-
screwed-up monitor.

Many of us who use multiple monitors on our PCs are all too familiar with how
hard it is to achieve consistency when dragging a window between displays.
Every time I swap out a monitor on my main PC, it usually takes me about an
hour of screwing around with the Nvidia control panel before I'm satisfied
with the match between my new monitor and the existing one(s). I'd guess that
most users with only a single monitor aren't even aware that they can change
the brightness, contrast, and gamma of individual RGB components.

What that means is that spending hours tweaking your design for "just the
right contrast" is guaranteed to be a waste of time. Web designers working in
the real world need to make conservative choices, and that means higher
contrast is almost always better than lower.

~~~
vacri
Even with good monitors, some of us are tired of the trendiness of greyscale
designs and see them as just as dated as it is using green text on black to
suggest 'hacker'.

~~~
tripzilch
Oh can we _please_ bring back the green-on-black? I VASTLY prefer it to the
greyish-on-greyish! :)

But now I wonder, green-on-black is of course based on the old CRT monitors.
But in those days you also had orange-on-black monitors, is there any reason
why that never caught on in hacker circles?

Or was the green-on-black just that much more ubiquitous. I gotta admit, I did
write my first code on a classic green-on-black display ... but friends of me
had different models of computers and just as many were orange-on-black (or
very early colour models and of course TV monitors).

------
danso
The best design tip I've picked up in the last five years was that sometimes,
in your CSS definitions, you can use #555 or #777 or even #333, and not just
black.

I don't mean that I didn't know you could enter hex numbers for colors, I just
didn't realize that when I wanted a "black" border, #888 makes for a much less
jarring border than #000...and this is critical if you have a lot of bordered
elements.

~~~
gmac
Yes -- and for borders it's arguably still black, just thinner, since a 1px
line at 50% black could be an aliased representation of a 0.5px line at 100%
black.

------
hnriot
This comes up often on hn. Using painting, especially Wayne Thiebaud's as
support for the argument is very weak. He's a pop art painter that is known
for using exaggerated colors, it's part of the pop art movement's signature
style.

I would agree that when painting a shadow, you will likely find if you look
carefully that it is not black, but in web design color is different and
design has different goals to painting. The former is about clarity and
function, the latter is expression and feeling.

In rebuttal to the argument, there are several hundred years of printing that
seemed to have moved western civilization forward quite nicely that was black
on white.

~~~
jessevondoom
Well the thing with printing is that the K part of CMYK is actually not the
darkest black, yet it's 100% K that's used to print a book.

Fully saturated rich black (100% C+M+Y+K) is usually a little too jarring
against a bright stock — take a look at most high quality books and notice
that the stock is off-white and the ink isn't nearly as rich as #000 black on
screen.

I think the original point as a lot of merit. Staying even just a little bit
further from #000 or even pure grays (try #335, etc) can give more even tones
and keep contrast high while reducing fatigue.

You're right about comparing art to print though — different goals, even
though the conclusion is valid.

~~~
michaelmior
Back when I used to do some print design, we always used 95% K max. Anything
else came out funny on the stock we were using.

------
dholowiski
NO. This is how we end up with dark gray text on light gray background, on a
web site.

If you're building something that people will read, __make it easy for them to
read __.

------
gallerytungsten
This article suffers from a bit of confusion over the difference between art
and design.

Art: don't use the color black (or build up to it.) Good tip from "childhood
art teacher." Another way of putting it: don't use black unless you know what
you're doing.

Design: black is the strongest color. (The three strongest colors in design
are black, white, red.) However, don't use a black background with white text
(or any other color text on a dark background; bad readability). If your
design isn't working in black and white, it's not working.

------
artursapek
My painting teacher at RISD told me that when he paints an outdoor scene he
always mixes a tiny bit of blue into every color he uses, because the color of
the sky is reflected off everything. It's a real skill to see color
arbitrarily as it actually is, without attaching labels to it.

~~~
danem
I don't understand how accurate representation of color becomes a concern in
the areas graphic design. Sure, black is almost never a good choice when
practicing any sort of representational art. Mixing it with other pigment in a
effort to darken it saps any nuance or sensitivity that may have been present
in your colors, and will almost never be true to the colors you are actually
observing.

I don't however, understand how any of this is relevant and applicable to most
design. Offhandedly disregarding all use of black is quite silly, and shows a
lack of appreciation of the interplay of colors. Designers aren't artists.
Designers very often make no attempt to represent any real thing. So why
should physical phenomena enter the equation?

It is also incredibly important for designers to be sensitive of color, and to
be aware of how they interact and play with one another. All of that is a
given.

~~~
mrxd
Human beings are accustomed to looking a physical phenomena. Designs that
deviate from those rules are experienced as artificial, strange or
uncomfortable. But you're right that you can't say never use black. It would
be more correct to say never use black unless your goal is to make the viewer
feel uncomfortable.

~~~
danem
Please show me some research, or even anecdotal evidence supporting the claim
that black makes people uncomfortable.

Furthermore, the idea that designs which deviate from physical counterparts,
are "strange" or "uncomfortable" is completely unsupported by vast amounts of
highly popular and effective designs. Indeed it is often the goal of many
designers to deviate from and simplify any physical artifact it may reference.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=emil+ruder&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=emil+ruder&tbm=isch)
[https://www.google.com/search?q=edward+tufte&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=edward+tufte&tbm=isch)
[https://www.google.com/search?q=josef+muller+brockmann&t...](https://www.google.com/search?q=josef+muller+brockmann&tbm=isch)
[https://www.google.com/search?q=paul+rand&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=paul+rand&tbm=isch)
<http://www.pentagram.com/>

I haven't seen any claim substantiated by evidence of any sort. All claims
appear to supported by the concerns of representational artists, this blog
post, and some huge assumptions made about the human mind.

Graphic design is too complex, sophisticated to be subjected to these maxims
you and others seem eager to impose.

~~~
mrxd
It will come as a shock for you to learn that high modernist design aesthetic
you are celebrating was subjected to some withering critiques. It was
considered cold, austere, artificial, too abstract, uncomfortable and hostile
to humanity -- all of the things I just said. When applied to urban planning,
it was associated with bureaucracy, elitism and authoritarianism.

Given your limited knowledge of the history of design, I suggest being a
little more cautious about accusing others of lacking sophistication.

~~~
danem
I never suggested that the work of Ruder, Brockmann, or Rand was the highest
echelon reachable by a designer. I never meant to suggest that theirs is the
only aesthetic worth emulating or admiring. They are merely prominent examples
of design that takes no queues from physical phenomena.

If the existence of a physical referent was as important as you claim, then I
suppose the use of white (#000), red ( #f00), and countless other colors that
aren't found in the physical world should be similarly avoided.

I never suggested that you were unsophisticated. I am merely stating that
design is something far to sophisticated to apply broad dogmatic
generalizations to. The suggestion that the usage of black is to be
universally avoided flys in the face of the very history you seem to be
concerned with.

I am still interested to see some research suggesting the the very usage of
black leads to "strange" design. I see it used daily across many different
contexts, for vastly different audiences. Has there been some trend away from
black that major organizations such as the AIGA[1], TDC[2], and leaders of
field such as Bruce Mau[3], Jennifer Morla[4], and Michael Beirut[5] have all
been unaware of?

I'd appreciate you refraining from the condescension. I am very aware of the
critiques that have been made of their work. I haven't seen it related to
urban planning however, and would be very interested in reading about it
further.

1\. <http://www.aiga.org> 2\. <http://www.tdc.org> 3\.
<http://www.brucemaudesign.com/> 4\. <http://morladesign.com/> 5\.
<http://www.pentagram.com/>

~~~
mrxd
First, most of the design work you are referring to comes from the print
world, which has some differences from designing for a screen. Second, part of
the reason that modernist styles were critically acclaimed is because they
managed to pull off something very difficult. They violated conventions and
still managed to create successful designs. This doesn't really change the
fact that not using black and sticking with a more natural style is good
general advice, just like the techniques of professional race car drivers
don't really apply to the average driver.

Naturalism is a more forgiving guideline for people without a strong design
background - it will help them produce better design work, partly because they
have a baseline of comparison in their everyday environment.

------
kadavy
Avoiding black definitely causes you to make color choices that add more
dimension and realism to your interfaces. Interfaces, after all, are
representations of reality.

One helpful tip: "warm" colors jump out at you, and "cool" colors recede away
from you. You can use this to your advantage when designing buttons, or even
when working with typography.

More detail in this article, "Why Monet Never Used Black":
<http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/d4h-color-theory/>

------
rlpb
I'm not sure that this argument works.

#000 on my screen isn't black either. It's dark grey.

Doesn't this mean avoiding #000 for design aimed at screen display cause you
to avoid pure black twice, and thus just reduce contrast? Perhaps that's what
you want, and what looks better. But it isn't because #000 is pure black,
because no screen can achieve that.

~~~
tinco
He does not only tell you to reduce the contrast, which with a good enough
screen can be arbitrarily high, he also advices you to increase the
saturation. And pure black can not have saturation.

------
highace
Good read. I came to this exact realisation myself not too long ago too. A
hint of blue in your greys makes them much more appealing than pure grey.

~~~
re_todd
Reminds me of the time I was looking through a page wondering how the designer
got the greys to look so good. I was surprised when I saw the css class called
"bluish-grey", and I suddenly realized he had been using a blue tint and I
hadn't really noticed. (He also used #333 for blacks, which looked really
good, and I've been using ever since).

------
PaulHoule
how about "never use white?"

rgb(255,255,255) is the brightest color value you can have on the screen and
colors like rgb(255,0,0) don't really pop against it because they're dark in
comparison.

~~~
ianstormtaylor
My problem with not using white is that even slightly-grayed whites take on
very different tints depending on the display, so as much as I'd like to use
it, I avoid it.

But, I do remember one of my drawing teachers at RISD telling us not to use
the white charcoal sticks in our charcoal drawings (there the white is the
weird unnatural element). And it's true, when I mixed in whites for highlights
instead just erasing to the color of the paper, things started to feel weird.

------
mynameishere
Okay, don't use black. I can just go to Tools -> Web Developer -> CSS ->
Disable Styles -> All Styles to fix your bad design with a superior non-
design.

~~~
rimantas

      > non-design
    

So you disable even browser defaults and this is superior?

~~~
DanBC
Frustratingly often overriding everything imposed by a designer and sticking
to a nice font of black on off-white; (or very pale yellow on near black) does
give better results.

------
michaelpinto
Paul Rand (who was perhaps the best graphic designer of the 20th Century)
would disagree with that "tip"

~~~
lsiclait
Here's an article with Paul Rand's views on the subject (that extols black)

[http://www.paul-
rand.com/foundation/thoughts_black/#.UCLgysj...](http://www.paul-
rand.com/foundation/thoughts_black/#.UCLgysjC6z4)

~~~
delackner
quote from your link: "In some countries black or _near-black_ has been
employed extensively"

he also calls the shadows on a tree trunk black, so it seems he is not really
arguing in favor of #000 but in favor of the use of very dark monochromatic
colors, including true black. Also ALL of his examples are completely
black/white or grayscale images of PRINTED or PAINTED objects, which naturally
all do not achieve #000.

His views are entirely personal, as are our own. Personally, I found the #000
in his Next Logo to be the worst aspect of the whole design, since its extreme
contrast suggests a low-tech print process or an old EGA screen incapable of
more nuance. This is an aspect of most of his logos that I have never really
liked, the same extreme contrast and blockiness that makes his IBM logo look
more like an old ASCII display in someone's garage than the representation of
a bold and powerful company.

------
lsdafjklsd
Learned about this in my motion graphics class, no such thing as pure black in
nature.

Also, all of the articles on your website link to this story. Great reads.

~~~
Xcelerate
Not quite true. Black holes for instance. Also, there's some carbon nanotube
pigments used to absorb like 99.9999% of light that lands on it. It still
looks pure black even when using a powerful flash to take a photo of it. These
pigments were developed by NASA for use in telescopes where even a little bit
of light can ruin the image.

~~~
bberrry
Black holes are not black dude.. You can't see them at all.

~~~
thinkingisfun
Which is what black is: You can't see it, since it returns no light.

~~~
D9u
As I've previously mentioned, cave darkness is completely black, and natural.

------
Raisin
Also stop using grey <http://stopusinggrey.com/> add just a bit of colors to
you designs.

------
mischov
In case you're curious, the text you are reading now is #000.

Which is not to say that #222 wouldn't be easier on the eyes.

~~~
radley
Probably would look less pixely...

~~~
pizza
Pixely? How would color affected 'pixeliness'?

~~~
radley
The higher the contrast, the easier to see pixel edges.

------
runemadsen
One thing to think about is that many users have auto-dimming screens, which
means that your dark-grey color will appear black anyway. What tends to happen
with these low contrast, analogous color schemes is that they result in a mid-
gray soup of colors. I tend to use higher contrast on the web than in print.
Itten's seven color contrasts is a great way to learn how to create contrasted
color schemes that still survive dimmed screens, even without using the
light/dark contrast.

------
icoder
Well, black is not black, it is simply the darkest color your medium (paper,
screen, etc) can display. Not using it would effectively reduce the dynamic
range of your medium.

------
playhard
Brilliant Article .This made me read color theory

For starters, [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-theory-
for-...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-theory-for-
designers-part-1-the-meaning-of-color/)

[http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/mobile-design-
tutorials...](http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/mobile-design-
tutorials/introduction-to-color-theory/)

~~~
aw3c2
Those could really use some scientific sources.

------
alexanderh
I couldnt disagree with this article more. I'm frustrated with how little
webpages use black.

In all my development environments where i'm coding for hours on end, i always
find black background with white text to be far superior in terms of
readability. I wish everyone had AMOLED screens (even on our desktops) so
using black had more of a real purpose.

------
D9u
While the article is well presented, and contains many good points, I must
take issue with a few of the ideas set forth.

1.) I'm not taking "design tips" from someone whose site takes so long to load
on a slow connection.

2.) Obviously the author has never been in a cave and turned all lighting off.
Cave darkness is a complete and total absence of light & color save for black.
This color IS NATURAL!

3.) In the spirit of the "green" movement, doesn't the use of black equate to
less power consumption? (Remember <http://www.blackle.com/> "energy saving
search?")

That said, I'm sure that the author is vastly more artistically talented than
I, as I can't even color within the lines in my grandchildren's coloring
books!

~~~
ricardobeat
The moment you add a dot of _any_ visible color in that cave, it's not pitch
black anymore. So no, 100% black is not found in nature paired to other
colors.

------
chipsy
Disagree with the concept. I would recommend studying pixel art for examples
of really strong color usage - most modern styles work within an economical
palette, just like in graphic design. Black is commonplace, it's how it's used
that matters. The scene as a whole has similar considerations for contrast and
weight as graphic design, even though the individual elements tend to
emphasize detail and lighting.

Enormous pixel art thread: <http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=167.0>

------
duaneb
I'm not sure this applies to user interfaces and digital design, where style
is a huge aspect. The starkness of true black on true white is stark, and
sometimes that's what you're looking for, especially for minimalism. For
example, see <http://whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/>. I would think a
design student would recognize that not everyone wants to have the same look
and feel as other people, and there is a place for black. Just not in his
sketching class at RISD.

------
rio517
Now someone needs to tell this to the people who redesigned <http://salon.com>
recently. It's virtually unreadable.

~~~
kstenerud
It looks fine to me. What's wrong with it?

------
pizza
Never use black because it's too strong to always be used? If you want
something strong, use black. If you don't, don't. That's about it.

~~~
thinkingisfun
That's why I like using #222 for text, it leaves #000 for the <strong> tag.

------
poppysan
It really depends. I am not a fan of the tip because it is a bit misleading.
The reason there aren't many true blacks in representational art is due to
reflection of light into the shadows.

Also, given the overall temperature of an image, it can be just as high-
contrast to use a color on the opposite end of the color wheel.

Either way, these are style decisions, which are highly subjective.

------
localhost3000
anyone else have this experience: reading this article on an iphone only to
notice that the thing in my hand - perhaps the most successful consumer
electronic device in the world - was as close to jet black as anything else
I'd seen today? :\ ... what about black turtle necks - are those OK?

------
swah
Little experiment: I changed text from black to #130F30 on a website and
couldn't notice the difference..

~~~
Teapot
I only see the difference when i know to look for it. That's good design.

------
esolyt
I find this approach too extreme. Black is sometimes needed. You may choose to
use true black and maximize the contrast when you need to improve readability,
especially for accessibility reasons.

------
kstenerud
shpoonj your account has been hellbanned as of 11 days ago here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4305877>

------
ClintonWu
Funny to see this ranked right above Pulse's post:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4360756>

------
swasheck
How do I reconcile this with "Always Bet On Black?"

------
rjzzleep
op obviously not as knowledgeable as he thinks he is. but as some here
mentioned theres nothing better than light on dark for eye comfort.

otoh if you take antialiased font it will NEVER be really black anyway. and
people who use bitmap fonts for long hour coding sessions just because it
feels better, causes less headaches etc. will tell you that you can take your
advice and ... ;)

------
novalis
"Why does the Facebook Mobile interface feel so nice?"

I didn't know that, looks horrible to me. But either way a somewhat good read
in general.

------
markbnine
Except for movie posters Clockwork Orange. Aliens. Star Wars. Love the black.

------
lovskogen
Unless, you know, you want to make images or video pop out with great
contrast.

------
jasonlingx
Erm... The "absolute black" on your screen isn't absolute black either...

------
ehutch79
to all the commenters arguing against the point... this article isnt for you.
it's for people who just through everything up as #000 and #FFF.

It's for the people who desperately need things like bootstrap.

------
electic
There is a lot of black on HackerNews and I love HN:)

------
codegeek
funny thing for me is that I had a hard time reading his blog since the font
color is too light for me. It could just be me though.

~~~
cag_ii
Same here, the dark grey used for the article title would look much better
IMO.

------
azylman
I really hoped that this was going to be a joke about how, if you use black,
Apple will sue you for patent infringement...

~~~
mnicole
I'm trying to remember the name of the designer that tried to call out fab.com
a few months ago for "stealing" his aesthetic. By aesthetic I mean he puts
white Helvetica type on black.

------
synor
Ansel Adams disagrees.

------
dzenn
its funny how most people here dont know anything about design .. i totally
agree never use black .

~~~
hamey
I agree - maybe the HN crowd isn't an ideal fit for this. I've always stayed
away from pure black.

------
hakanito
Totally agree.

