Ep. 40 - The Worst Color Combinations of All Time?

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In this week's episode of the Digital Wrap-Up, Harden Digital & Design Creative Director, Kaylee, breaks down her top choices for the color combinations you MUST avoid when designing. From yellow on red to pastels and pink, Kaylee has some strong feelings about some of the color combinations out there. 

When designing, color combinations can be the difference between a great design and an absolutely horrendous design. Colors are what make designs pop. They drive people to look at your design. Often times, they're what make your design memorable. 

But you don't want to be remembered for the wrong reasons, like a terrible color combination. We've all seen them before: those ads, billboards, banners alongside the road. There's nothing worse than seeing some type of design and cringey because it looks so bad.

From yellow on red to pastels and pink, Kaylee has some strong feelings about some of the color combinations out there.

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:24

Welcome back to another episode of the digital wrap up. My name is Riley and I'm the host, and I'm the CEO and digital director of hardened digital on design. Looking forward to today's episode, we're going to be talking about graphic design. Again, I'm going to bring Kaylee on and talk about some color combinations to avoid when you're designing. And we'll have Kaylee's mix of bad ones. And then she'll throw in some of her favorites that you can use whenever you're designing, whether for web or print, whatever it may be. But before we get into that, I want to briefly talk about our new subscription program for the digital wrap up podcast. It's something new from Buzzsprout, which we use to host our podcast on. And now you can directly support the show with a monthly monetary donation to the show. It's a subscription fee, like if you're paying for a subscription on Twitch for those people who are familiar with Twitch or you know, any other subscription fee, Netflix, Amazon, whatever it may be. But just a small monetary fee to support the show goes directly to digital wrap up and supports things like paying for the hosting service, buying the equipment, the mics, just bought a new mic and a new camera so that we can have guests on the show and not just use one camera or one mic. So it just goes to support those type of fees so that we can continue to make and produce podcasts every week, and get them pushed out on YouTube, Apple Spotify, wherever you're listening or watching this too. So if you want to support the show, if you really enjoy the content, you can go to bit.li/digital Wrap up, that's bi T dot L y slash digital wrap up and the D and digital the W and rap in the U and up are all capitalized. So again, that's Bitly slash digital wrap up. And if you aren't watching on YouTube, and you'd rather tune into this episode on YouTube, you can go to youtube.com/at hardened digital and see our smiling faces as we talk about some design concepts, color concepts, and I will probably be completely schooled and not know anything about design and colors. So looking to learn something today as we talk with Kaylee. So I think that should be all the housekeeping notes. Again, just really appreciate the support everybody who's listened and followed over the past year, little more than a year now. And just looking to take the podcast to the next level with everything we're doing for the YouTube channel now producing all the videos as well. It's just a time consuming process. It's something I enjoy, obviously, or I wouldn't keep doing it. But you know, starting to grow the show more and hopefully bring some more value to you as well as listeners. So I think that's it. Let's go ahead and bring Kaylee on and we can talk about some color combinations. So welcome, Kaylee. Hello. How are you? I'm less nervous this time than it was last time. That's good. So your third episode on the show? Yes. So it's something that you just getting used to the more that you do it I was nervous the same way whenever I first started and then I was nervous all over again whenever we started doing the video version of it. So the video throws me off. But yeah, that's okay. It's it's different. But thank you for joining me I know it's something you know, since we brought on or brought you on and offer graphic design services now. It makes sense to talk about graphic design things on the podcast, as well as the social media and business side of things that I often talk about. So that's one thing that we're going to be doing more over the notes timeframe, I guess over the lifespan of this podcast, we're going to be talking more about graphic design, tips and tricks things to avoid different topics like that with Kayleigh, who brings a lot of experience to the podcast. And so hopefully you can learn a lot from her. Whether you're an amateur designer, or you're a social media manager who creates graphics in Canva, and could use some best practices, we should be able to touch on a lot of those in the podcast. So for all of you, aspiring graphic designers, you can now tune in, and hopefully we have an episode, at least every other episode. And maybe once every three episodes, kind of we'll just not setting a specific schedule of design versus social media or anything. But yeah, I think I approached Kaylee with even oh, let's start another podcast about specifically graphic design, because we just have all the time in the world. But that's a lot. Yeah, committing to a regular schedule for a whole separate podcast, it's not worth it. So we're just gonna include everything here. Because, you know, the title is digital wrap up and a lot of design stuff now is digital. So most of it, I would say. So, today, specifically, though, we're going to talk about color combinations to avoid when designing whether digitally for the web or social media graphics or for print as well, if you're making flyers, postcards, whatever it may be. So I guess this is you. I mean, everybody's seen those just, you see something that's like, those colors look terrible? Why would you ever think that? I think just let's jump right into it. Do you have one that just like, wow, this is terrible and makes me want to puke? Like the What's your biggest one? My worst one? I think it's because when I drive through towns, and they have all those, okay, when I drive through cities, and they have all those flags on the side of the major roads for like advertising, this business here, this business here, for some reason, every single flag is always yellow on red. And that is like cringy. To me. I don't know why that's the most popular color option. But it's like every business. It's not even food. Like I understand like McDonald's colors are red and yellow. Yeah, like that. That one actually is understandable. But it'll be like a Verizon Wireless thing or some completely random tech business has a red and yellow vinyl. Why does everything have to be? Yellow on our end? Yeah, it's the same the other way if the flag is yellow and red, like, it's, I don't know if it's just like, it's bold. Yes, I will give you that it is bold. You will see it, but it doesn't look great to me. I also think I might just have problem with red. Maybe, because I also have red on black on my list. And that one I think applies mostly to Web. Yeah. But so I didn't know any of these color combinations before coming in what she was going to talk about. And I don't want to throw a business specifically under the bus because they're really good to me. But I'm going to show Kaylee this actually just came out yesterday. It's a whole new products that they just released. And she's probably going to just Oh no. Yeah. So it's yellow, yellow, bright yellow with red. And then Oh, geez. Well, you mentioned black. Okay, see that? Black? Black on red on red, all black in apparel. That makes sense. To me. That seems really sporty. Yeah. I think it's different when it's different mediums. Like for some reason websites, though, people always want to have red text on black backgrounds. And there's no way on earth you can read that. Yeah, like that makes. I'm not the youngest out there. But I'm not the oldest either. And that's just impossible to read. So but the yellow Oh my god. I definitely agree with the I don't know, flags, I guess is what they're called. Yeah. The things that are in the ground and like hook up. Yeah. And blow in the wind promotional banners. Yeah, stick in the ground. I don't know. But it's not just like they're an muted or not so bright yellow. It's like it's always on yellow and red. Yeah, just like, clashes really bad. So many of you live near Montse. Like I have a specific memory of when this started bothering me. It's driving endow Medallia through Munzee. And like every 10 fee is just a giant red flag so that that one for some reason sticks out to me all the time of just not a good color combination to use. There's no reason ever on a website, you would use yellow text on red background. No, I don't know why then in print, that seems to be a good idea. But yeah, I didn't think about it that way. I guess that is one way if you ever like, well, most designs have that people who are listening are probably doing digital anyways. But just think of it. How would this look on the screen? Or how would this look printed out? And then if it you think, oh, gosh, that'd be bad, then. Okay, it's gonna be bad on whatever you're designing it. There's hardly any time I would vote for using yellow text. Yeah, I mean, your shirt has yellow on it, but it's a dark background. And that makes sense. It's a black. Yeah. So. So I guess there's an exception to everything I'm going to say today. Yeah. So don't take it all with like, these are the hard rules. These are all my opinions. That's the beauty of it being our podcast. If you're looking to design a flag, and it's red, that's probably a red flag. Not. So there's my dad joke for the day. So yeah, yellow and red. Bad combination. Black and red. Depends red on black. Not terrible. So what what's another one on your list? Combination? I have pastel colors. Just them combined together? There's not enough contrast. I don't I think people assume around like springtime or Easter or pink and blue shirts or dress. Like you can't read that. And I guess in my head, I don't know why the apparel there. Because that's what Yeah, but I'm, I'm kind of defaulting to having text on a background. Okay, because like pastel colors, for sure. You can have just colors like pastels next to each other, that's fine. But if you're trying to read something, I guess that's where my brain goes. If there's not enough contrast, between this lavender in this pink color, you going to be able to see that. So I maybe just don't love pastels. Once again, this is my personal opinion. But color combination, like there has to be a contrast. So when you're dealing with pastels on a design, then can you mix in, you know, a more solid bold color. So you have a pastel background or something like that. Yes. make the text a bold color. Yeah. Or I don't necessarily not bold, but dark, dark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can do pastels. Like on my other list of Yes, color combinations. It says black with anything. Like you can do pastels, the whole background could be a giant splatter of pastel colors. And then the texts can be black. Like, it's fine to combine them that way. I have no problem with that. I'm not against ever using pastels. It's just using them as the only contrast is not going to do any good. I can I can see that one. I don't know why just defaulted like Oh, pastel shirts, because I was I actually didn't know why. Cuz I was immediately thinking, Well, I have a Pink Pastel shirt and she's calling me out for it. But no, you can do that. But if then you tried to use a lavender embroidery on it, it wouldn't show up. So that's true. Okay, so next one after pastels. Next one is primary colors together. So we're still back on that red and yellow. Yeah, but it also is going to be a blue and red, or a yellow and blue. Like I think for some reason, people default to primary colors, which if you're not a designer, and those are the colors, you know, Red, Yellow and Blue. Like they're bright, they're bold. You can see them. But like if you tried to put blue text on yellow background on the website, people would go insane. Yeah, there. It is bright. You are getting your point across that, hey, I want you to see this. But people but then you can't read throwing up on their computers trying Yes. So it's like that. I've done magazine covers where whatever photo is on there, has like, let's say fall colors. And then the editor will ask me to make all the teasers like red and yellow. And then the big Madison. I'm calling them out, I guess, we're committing. I've already said it. But then they'll want the Madison to be blue. I'm like, why do we have to only use Red, Yellow and Blue? Those colors don't have anything to do with this cover. But they're bright. So I think even that that holiday edition, that one that's on my list. Okay. That one was bad. They're like throwing in the yellows or something. It's just, I think people just want to go for bright colors when they're trying to advertise or get people's attention. But not thinking about that. That's not the most aesthetically pleasing turning people away, right when they see those. And once like, there are plenty of schools that's a yellow and blue like Carmel. They're yellow, blue. I'm sure everything that they design is yellow and blue. Yeah, so it's not like you can't do that. It's just finding the right yellow and blue. There's certain scenarios like school colors, yes, different shades to different shades, or different color codes of it, not just the brightest yellow, the brightest blue. Yeah, having some cohesion, there probably helps things because yeah, like, you think of Carmel. And it's kind of just normal. And it doesn't like it doesn't bother me for a school. But for some reason, then, on a website, if I had a blog, even the other way, have a blue, black, blue background with yellow text, I would just, I wouldn't even look at it. Honestly, websites, you shouldn't ever. Ideally, you should have white as the background, there are some websites that look fine, darker backgrounds are non white. But then, in my opinion, white background with black text, no matter what your colors are, for your business, that's the way to go. And then you can mix in like a blue for the headers or a red for the headers, whatever it may be. But the overall design should just always look boring and boring is good on the website in terms of text, color, yes, and background. So whenever I see something that's opposite, I'm like, man, they must have updated this since the beginning of the internet or so. Because back in the day, like in my web design class in college, our very first assignment was like, copying this and coding it. And that is not my forte, and throw that out there. But it was blue with yellow. And I remember that now, you know, 12 years later. So that one, the primary colors in general, are not great to be used solely as your only color combination. Yeah. So that's on there. And then I also put Christmas colors. And I think I talked about this on the last episode I was on red and green. I just care for lack of a better explanation. They're opposite each other on the color wheel, they have a lot of contrast, that's great and all but red and green is not a good color combination. I can't handle it. At Christmas time. Even I like I don't even do a red and green tree. I am fully against those two colors together. So I honestly like red and white as Christmas colors better than red, or green and white or green and silver or they're so mad and sad. red and silver difference differentiates it from Valentine's Day. It still looks good. So our tree this year was red and silver. Have you noticed a theme here that like everything I hate is red though. Yeah, that's Yeah, and I have nothing against art. Like I don't. It's just a weird color to design is not the way to go, apparently. And it might be that I'm in the middle of doing a website where everything is red. So that might be throwing me off. If you're watching on YouTube. You'll see the Keighley shirt is actually red. It is. This is maroon it's darker. It's not like fire engine red. Yeah. So red example. Also, I look at it in red. So see, I think apparel is a whole different universe because you can have a red shirt with black on it and it looks fine. But you put that in a design and it looks crazy. Yeah, so fair enough. Um, my mom my last Well, I think I kind of combined a lot of those things together. But my last one on there is just pink with anything. And that I'm pretty 100% Sure it's just me not liking pink. Yeah. But I've read up over The years on color theory and when in advertising to use certain colors and what each color means. And pink is not a strong color pink is not a bold color. It's very, like timid and I don't really know how to explain it, but I just feel like it's never going to give you unless it's Valentine's Day or you're doing something super girly. It doesn't give enough pop for what I like I don't know, it might be. I think in my head, I'm referring specifically to like more pastel pink. Yeah. Because our gooseberry color is hot. Pink, magenta. Yeah. And it sure is bright. But it also doesn't go well with anything. Nobody on our staff wants to wear hot pink like, so. I don't maybe that's also why I'm against pink is I've seen so much. But it's hard to design things around pink. So yeah, I mean, you're really ideally, if you had to use pink, you're really stuck with white or black as a secondary color. And for for gooseberry specifically, since they're one of our clients. They do a heartbeat, and our family, but they do hot pink, and really light pink and then a lime green, like fluorescent green. Which all three of them together looks good. But you cannot do two of them. You can't do green on pink. You can't do pink on green. You can't do the you can almost do the light pink on the dark pink. Yeah, but like as combinations. You have to do all of them with white. So yeah. A lot of white text on the graphics you make for social media. I know that. Yeah. So that's also on my yes list. I have black with anything. And why was anything that will black is the way to go. If I could just do black and white everything I want. Yeah, because it was sharp. Like, I really enjoy whenever that this has happened twice recently, with new logo clients of I'm like, Okay, what do you want your company colors to be? They're like, well, I want it to be black like that is a given. Like, there's going to be black no matter what like that. When I'm asking you what I want your colors. What you want your colors to be black is not thrown in there, because that's a given to me. So if that's all you have in your head is that you want black, you're gonna have to think on that little bit more black and white, black and some color. Yeah. So blank always looks clean and always look sharp. You could do all black and white, and it would still look professional. So. And that's maybe just because that's the biggest contrast you can get. Yeah, so contrast is important in these color combinations. All right. So that was the, the list of ones to avoid. A lot of good info there. I am probably bad at paying attention to these types of colors when I do create graphics for social media. But I guess let's move on to you've already talked about a few of them. But your list for color combinations that you really like that aren't necessarily super common ones or that people don't just see all the time. Yes. So this also has to do with the Magazine Cover situation of if, but I do social media graphics. I do it with flyers. If there's a photo that works perfectly for whatever you're trying to show advertise use for something and all the colors in it are in the orange family. You can take your little eyedropper tool and pick out colors specifically out of the photo that are going to match with the photo. So I don't know if that's necessarily a combination, but I wrote it down as far as matching with the art. Yeah. Because there's no reason for the text that you're using to be the complete opposite of what matches Yeah, so that I spend a lot of time picking out specific colors to match cover photos on magazines. And for people to just be like No, I want yellow. But that doesn't make any sense but okay when all the other The color on the in the photo is range. Like sometimes there is a purpose and a place for contrasting just for the sake of contrasting, but for, for me having things match. I will specifically not put photos in a brochure or on a website, if the colors in the photo don't match the rest of the brochure. Yeah. Like it's gonna stand out, it's gonna look stupid. So that's not really a combination. But it was really important to me to throw out there that if your company colors are blue and gray, and every single photo you put on there has like bright red firetrucks in it like that is going to clash and it's going to look crazy. So you have to like think of the tone of the art to figure out which colors you want to go with it. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. And I think sitting here listening to Kaylee talk about these. I wouldn't be in a world of hurt if when I started hardened digital a few years ago, if I would have chosen red. That's my color, which Kaley actually designed the logo. She wasn't a part of her digital back then. But she designed the logo initially to and pick out the colors and blue is my favorite color. So that's why I went with blue but I imagine if it was red, and you're where you are today being our creative director you probably would hate yourself for picking red and having to you know like you see if you're watching on YouTube youtube.com/hardened Digital, the banner across the bottom here is blue. And if that had to be all red right now you've probably not I mean, I can handle it because there wouldn't have been a choice but even back then I would have told you to not go with red unless you were just dead set on it. Yeah, because well, once again, there's a lot of color theory going on and color psychology and blue is a trustworthy color blue is more techy, more digital. Red is really aggressive. These are all things I thought about starting the business bank Sure. But when people do start new businesses that is yeah, like so don't do what I did not think about it just be like my favorite color is blue. I mean, it worked out in your favor for this scenario. But I also know people who their favorite color is purple and they wanted a purple logo even though it made zero sense whatsoever. Yeah. And so I did it and now there's two but like in certain industries we did the logo for the construction company and there it was they were trying to put it on, you know fluorescent orange construction shirts. Yeah, so you can't put a blue logo on a neon orange shirt that's not going to show up so you got to think about your uses of where you're going to put these colors ahead of time read just just don't use read people that that's what I got for you. But I also have on my list jewel tones which Riley was like what in the heck are jewel tones? Yeah, so I said I didn't see this list before but I did glance at it on the desk before right before walking in and all I saw was jewel tones I honestly I couldn't even read what tones was sounds like jewel to eye but I was like what that what the heck are jewel tones so so for people don't like me? What did you will tell you for? I've assumed that I'm gonna assume that that's a thing for women who buy clothing but that that that would be who would know but little towns are like your emeralds and your movies and your darker colors, maybe blue like a deep purple. So it's basically the opposite of pastels. So those are the colors I gravitate to like. Like you mentioned that my shirt is red but this is a dark color so I look better in jewel tones. It matches my skin. I tend to gravitate towards that InDesign because it's darker. And that may just be my kind of style is more not so in your face. Not bright. I don't know a lot of stuff that's bright. I like it to be deeper, cooler. cooler colors will be more just like blues and greens which is Yeah, fine, dark. Cool. I like that I don't know, that's just who I am as a person, maybe I'm not really sure. But that's on my list of color combinations that I like. And you can do like a deep purple with then like a lighter purple of the same color. So like, you can do shades intensive color and keep it monochromatic. And that looks very, I do that a lot. You can even do that with if you're just doing black and gray. Like it'll just be one color, but different shades intense of the same color. And that's always going to look good. Yeah. I should have put that on there. Monochromatic but yeah, on the scale. Question, can you Is there such thing as probably going to sound as using silver on a digital design? Or is it really just gray? It's just gray. You can put effects on it to make it the silver comes in from the shininess. And the effects. Yeah, you can do gradients, like you can make things look like Chrome. But it's really just shades of black. Well, yeah, that's what gray is. Yeah. So it's just how you put effects over it. There's no like silver. At least, like you can paint things silver. Yeah. But you can't just like I don't even know how to explain it. Silver's not like a color color. Yeah. So I was just thinking, the darker colors like maroon or dark purple and silver. I think look cool. Yeah. But then you can't. That's really just gray. So yeah, anyways. Are there more two lists I have on there neutral colors. And that might be just because gray is popular right now. Yeah, and grays, and all the different colors of tan, and beige and brown it. I mean, that's always been popular, like in homes to keep it neutral. But now people are doing gray on gray everything. And it looks sharp to me like that looks good. If you've just picked up my camera. So you can do a dark gray and a light gray. And that's gonna look professional to me. Yeah. I would rather you have your whole website be gray than your whole website be red. Yeah, every scenario, I think gray looks nice. Gray looks good on. Apparel, great looks good. Kitchen Cabinets, great looks good. As a printed. Thing printed, you have a lot more flexibility. Because then if you do have one of those crazy colors as your primary color of your business, like bright pink or whatever, you can use gray. Again, it's like white or black. Yeah, it's kind of the combination of white and black. It's just always going to look nice. But I think gray if you don't just want text on a white background for graphic or something, make it a shade of gray and use colored text. And it looks a lot better than white background or all definitely all black background. Yeah. So and so for anyone designing anything ever. The less that the less color, the least amount of colors you use, the better it's going to look. So how many should you stick to three, three, like I would pick like black. I personally would do like black and white and a color. Yeah, or black and two colors. And you can mix those up and doesn't always just have to be black background white text with color, you can do a color background with black text and another accent color mixed. You can do accents like um, what company with the Boys and Girls Club, they had like a percentage of their designs that had to use this main blue. And then you have your secondary colors. And then they had a whole tertiary list of they had a lot of color choices, but they're like if you're going to use this random orange color that's like fifth down the line. You can only use that in 3% of the design. I you does that with their style guide. Yeah, it'll say like this crimson color right here has to be like 80% of the design and then they've got a Yellow when they've got a green and they've got a purple I think interesting. We just did to Keller Williams. They had a red and then they had specific Gray's that are their branded colors. Yeah. So there's was all black, white, red and gray. Which I don't hate. Yeah. When it's it was a darker red. It's not like but you you it's not just all red on black or black on red. It's red. It's like the accent color. Yeah. So in that case, it was mostly black and white and gray with some red. Yeah. And then the artwork that you choose with it is going to be in that range, I guess. Yeah. So you're not going to make everything look super pastel and white when your main color is red. Yeah. And we just designed or not we Kaley just designed booklets for one of our clients, one of the Keller Williams agents. And we're going to be posting graphics of those. So you can kind of see what they look like with that white, red and black color combination. So like I said, there are exceptions to everything I've said today. Like my last one on my color combos list that I like is orange and purple. Which in Xero universe, do those two colors go together? Yeah. They have been my favorite color since forever. I happened to go to a university that that was the colors which was completely by chance. But then, like the flowers I plant at my house, I will try every year to try and get something different. And I always ended up with orange and purple. Like in my head. That's just my go to like orange and blue to orange and blue, I think is harder to read. So I'm there right across from each other on the color wheel. Yeah, they have all the contrast. So it's it's obviously a good combination. But I don't I don't love orange and blue for some reason. But orange Purple Man. Interesting. I don't know why I do like Evansville, one of the purple aces. Yeah, I do like that color. But those those two colors like it's like, all right, orange and bright purple. So once again, because it's a school that makes sense to me. In my everyday design, I would use more like a deeper purple and a more warm purple. Yeah. And unless she's orange, I think what we should do for a future episode, kind of piggyback off of this one is you should find your least favorite and your favorite college or university color schemes. And then we just break them down, because I'm sure there's some hideous ones. I'm 100% Sure. I already know. Like, because I worked in Anderson and you live in Anderson that their high school colors are writing green. Oh, yeah. And I can't handle it. I'm telling you, it looks bad. Because on every shirt ever, then everything is red and green. Yeah. And it looks. See in that scenario, I would pick blue and yellow overriding green any day. So I even have like a range on the bad combos I have levels of okay, this is still acceptable compared to Yeah. And I really do think it's more about how you use the two colors together. If it's just two primary colors competing, you don't mix any white, you don't mix any black. And it's just literally everything that is associated with your business or your school or it's just those two colors and no other accents or anything. It's just not good. I mean technically, I think our logo or our color scheme there's a darker blue and a lighter blue. I tend to use the lighter blue on most things but we do have two different shades of blue and then obviously everything is white pretty much with our logo so and because why is clean when in doubt. Yeah, if you're using Canva ever, and you can't figure out what to do just do a wipe. Yeah. Don't be trying to put a photo and then put all this text on top of a photo plus have all the text three different colors. I will scroll straight acid on my Facebook like I I'm not even going to try and pretend that I'm gonna read that. Yeah. Yeah, and that's maybe sounded really a lot more judgmental than I meant for you But you have to think about that kind of stuff when you are. Because everything you, you have to capture people's attention and like us, like, really a half a second or less. And when there's, there are, I think certain colors across the board that are generally not as well accepted. The color combinations, I'm sure we could probably figure out a few of them are like, there's probably research out there these color combinations are not attracted. Yeah, not attractive. Yeah. to 70% of the world, whatever it may be. And if you use those colors in people tend to not like them. Yeah, they're just gonna keep scrolling. I look at it. And if you made your business those colors, I'm sorry. But you know, there's a lot more to think about in general, we're literally just talking about colors. We're not talking about logo design. We're not talking about how you lay out the text in the graphic, or no, we're talking about color. Yeah. And if I'm scrolling through Facebook, and there's something that's pastel colored, and then the very next thing is like, bright orange. What do you think I'm gonna look at? So, yeah, it's right. There's so much the bright orange. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So there's obviously a purpose for every color out there. You could use anything you wanted whenever you wanted, and you could make it work. These are just things that bother me. So yeah, people might disagree with me. That's 100%. Fine. There's also research out the wazoo about different color theory. And for hours red makes people angry. Yeah. Like, black makes people angry. Yeah. Yellow makes people happy. Like, okay, that's super great. But what do you got? If you got red aggressive and yellow happy? Like, they're gonna they're gonna attack you, but they're gonna be smiling. So it's fascinating. You can I could spend hours days reading about it. I just shoot for the best sometimes. Yeah. And a lot of times do like with breast cancer related things. They picked a color and they ran with it. I don't know. At what point someone decided it was the color. But it has a home. Meaning? Yeah, like it's a whole movement, basically like Yeah, I mean, think back like, I don't know, the history of it. But it's so weird to think about, obviously, all these different cancers and different diseases have different colors for their ribbons and things but like, who decided breast cancer was pink? Right? Somebody's like, today breast cancer awareness was green. Like that'd be just so weird. Rains forever. That's it's been pink. It's been pink. But so there there are times in places for Yeah, every color. And like Tiffany blue is probably one of the most iconic colors there is. If a different company tried to use a similar color, would that go well? Or would people automatically confuse them with this? Like, should you stay away from it? Should you try and use it to imitate that and maybe get your brand noticed? I mean, that just speaks to the power of choosing the right color and why you should rely on people who are in this field to whether you consult with them or higher than whatever it may be. When you are thinking about redesigning your logo or rebranding or starting from scratch that put some thought into it. And it's not just hey, I like blue. In my case. Like the Tiffany blue you you mentioned, like it's such a widely recognized color now. There's firearm manufacturers that put Tiffany blue on their guns and it appeals to the the female audience that likes Tiffany blue and 100% works I know people who have bought that color that or that specific gun because of the Tiffany blue because they associated with it Being cool or whatever they like it. So yeah, it, there are some brands that are like, like, to me Nike is orange, like you have on a Nike shirt, obviously, that's just like the shoe boxes that Nike shoes come in are orange. And so in my head, that's always what I'm associated with, like, they're just certain. And those are obviously like very large brands and very established brands. But you can do that locally, whether you're a local business or whatever, whatever business will, no matter what size you are, you should be striving to recognize, yeah, have that type of brand recognition, whether it's just in your community, or just the Midwest, whatever it may be. And it all starts with the colors and your logo. And that's why we use specifically focus on branding a lot with a lot of our new clients. So we do if you want to talk about the different branding services that we offer, everything from like, logo design, logo design, we can break it down into specific things, or we can do the whole branding package but and that includes your color choices, your font choices, your imaging choices, the effects that you'll use, on images, the different I mean, this would be more your expertise, but like different tone of voice for your brand, like we can start with you from the ground up and help you get on the right path towards having a brand that's memorable and recognizable like, and we provide all that, you know, like the construction company, we provided a full logo kit a brand kit for you know, we logos, you get a horizontal logo like this one, I always struggle and trying to point to this frickin banner. A horizontal logo like that, we also have a stacked vertical logo. And then we also just have the, the HD icon and then you get all that plus you get the color codes for the light blue and the dark blue. You don't need a color code for Black. But if it was a shade of gray, like we provide all of that in the brand kit for you. And whether you're starting from scratch, you're starting a new business or you're listening to this and like, well, our branding looks like crap, we need to redo something. And I think there are a lot of people who probably have businesses that are like, I started this business in my house because I'm good at this particular skill. And I started a business and I ordered a business card from Vistaprint. Like they don't have maybe a logo, they don't have colors, they just kind of go with the flow. Yeah. Which is fine when you're first starting out if you want. But if you want to grow and have people remember you, that's something you could think about. Just it's worth the investment, it's worth it, especially I don't know how to, like I know a lot of businesses who have rebranded six times in six years. So not only does that hurt you because you have to reorder a logo, and you have to reprint everything that you've ever printed your current logo on. But no one's gonna remember your name and your brand if you keep changing it. So all of this stuff is stuff I just said stuff twice. So all of this is what you need to think about ahead of time before committing. And that's where we come in. And it was hard for me before I was teamed up with you to come up with just a name for my business because I knew that once I picked it That's That's it. Like I was committing to that forever. There wasn't going to be changing my mind and changing the name next year and yeah, and that's what I think getting outside perspective can help a whole lot because whether it's the color or the name we don't usually do anything with naming of businesses but if you came to us with like, hey I have this business it's starting I just you know, in terms of what would look best on a logo or social media profiles whatever in like choose between a couple of different names Yeah, I'll give you my opinion by far but like in terms of you don't know which colors you should pick for your company and it's like well, yes, you can come to us and be like I My favorite color is blue. I do want some type of blue but it doesn't just need to be the bold the In your face blue, we can, that's where we can work with you to decide which colors are best for you. And you might be stuck in like, I don't know what to do, which to choose. And that's where we can provide that, that outside input in that, you know, obviously listening to Kaylee, she knows what she's talking about. That's the perspective that we can provide. Because you're thinking about all the other different things associated with your business or in especially when you're starting a business, getting the legal side of things, figured out the services ironed out the pricing, all this other stuff that goes into creating a business, you don't want to really thinks about how important you don't want this to fall behind, and then your six months and be like, Wow, I should have put more thought or I should have hired somebody to do our logo or pick our colors and do a brand kit for us. So and that's, that's not some I have had many, many clients who are like, I don't even care. Yeah, I don't even care what the logo looks like, like, I just need you to do it. Because it's better than what they would do on the right, which is fine. But like you have, you're putting everything you have into that business. Why would you not spend the time to do it, but I don't know that kind of throws me off. But I also have to put in there because I told you I work. A little note for people who may not know this, that colors on the computer and colors on your phone look different than when they are printed out? Yes. Don't forget to mention that. I forgot. That should have probably gone in way earlier. Yeah. I just remembered I should see this, what happens when I don't write things down. But I've had clients who especially with like, more fluorescent or neon type colors? Yeah, they look fantastic on the computer. They are bright, they are like crisp. And then when you print them, especially like fluorescent green, and then you print it and it looks like puke. Yeah, the exact same color is the same color code. But the way the computer works in RGB is the color is made by red, green and blue. When you print it, for anybody who's ever put ink in a printer, you got CMYK. So it can be the exact same color, I'm looking at it on my screen I printed off here looks completely different. So that's also something you have to think about when choosing any coating. I'm gonna make noise on my phone. Haley's still adjusting the podcast, I'm not great at podcasts. But the point was, if you're going to pick these colors, and all you've ever seen them on is a computer. Think about that to have, hey, put these combos on paper and print them out and see if it looks completely different, because you might hate it. So again, that's where we can come in. And you might tell Kaylee, you want these colors and she'll know right away like those aren't going to look good when you print them. Or you're going to have to everything that you ever plan is going to have to be on glossed over or whatever. And it's going to be 10 times more expensive. Yeah, in get bright green printed on your business cards, but you have to specifically get the glossy backs and all this stuff, which is always more money and money controls everything. So don't do bright green if you don't want to spend a lot of money, essentially. But that that's just it happens a lot with green for some reason. I don't know. Yeah, it does. Why that one stands out to me. But I think orange is there to a brighter orange. Yeah, it just never looks as extra. I know that is not the right word. I'm thinking. It doesn't look as exciting when it's printed. And people have gotten mad at me like why is this the wrong color? I don't know how else to explain it to you. Besides that is the same color. So something to think about there as a complete side tangent to what we were talking about. Now she's adjusted to my podcast life where I always go on side tangents. But I think that we'll kind of wrap up should have maybe led with that part before we started talking about colors, but that's alright. You just have to listen till the end. Yeah, we might do a teaser about this and like, tune into minute 15 about printing versus on screen. But Kaylee, thanks for joining me. I'm excited to start talking about design or on the podcast, I will probably learn a whole lot. And it'll probably go in one ear and out the other as I continue to just be a terrible designer. But hopefully people who do listen to the show are in this world and can use the tips that you're going to be bringing, specifically about different aspects of design, print, digital, web, whatever. I mean, we can talk about clothing if we want. But yeah, I'm excited to bring that aspect into the podcast on a more regular basis. I really think every other week is a good cadence for that, too. She's panicking. I mean, she already has like five ideas. And that's how I was when I first started the podcast, too, is, you know, I had five ideas I record. The first one was like, okay, I can do this. And then I wanted to knock out five more episodes. And then it's like, well, now what do we talk about? So we're spacing them out? is good. Yeah. And if anybody has specific topics or questions that they want to hear about, comment, call us, email us, whatever, email Kaylee Kaylee at Hearns digital design, if it's design related, because if you email me at Riley, harden, Digital's back, harden digital.com, I'm just gonna immediately forward it to her. And it's about design. So you can do that and submit your comments will or questions about design, same as we do about business and social media and that side of things. But to kind of wrap things up, if you do want support the show, and you become a subscriber at Bi t.li/digital wrap up? That's one of the perks that you can get for being a subscribers they if you submit a question, whether it's about websites, social media, running a small business or graphic design will answer your question on the very next episode. Given that you don't submit it on a Wednesday morning and record, like, there's a little time lapse where it's not going to be the very next episode like Tuesday, Wednesday morning, as we hit record on the podcast, we're probably not going to squeeze that one in. But the very next week episode, if you submit a question to us, we'll answer it on that very next episode, we'll give you a shout out if you subscribe. And if you want to promote your social media or a cause that you're wanting to support, we'd be happy to shout that out as well. So just a couple of perks if you do want to support the show and become a subscriber, again, we'd really appreciate it as we continue to grow. This podcast venture it's we're adding new things every few months, I get a new idea and we run with it. So here we are, and looking to continue providing great content hopefully it's stuff that all of you who are listening can take away and put to use or just give you something to think about if you are starting a business or social media manager or graphic designer. So I think that'll do it for today. Thanks again, Kaylee for for joining us and we will talk to you next time on the digital wrap up. Have a great week.