Life is made up of colors and there’s a science to their selection when it comes to billboard designs. How colors interact with the human mind has been a big part of the research of the billboard industry as well as many other applications. In this Billboard Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the science of color to help create more effective billboards.
Episode 113: The Science Of Color Transcript
There are around 17 million colors in the universe, but only a few of those work on billboards. This is Frank Rolfe of The Billboard Mastery Podcast. We're going to talk all about color theory. Colors on billboards. What you need to know about the science of color. There's basically two things to talk about. Visibility and contrast. So let's start off with visibility. And by visibility, I don't mean that you can see the color. Clearly of those 17 million colors, you can see all of them. So that's not a question. But what's more important is what makes certain colors stand out from others. Because when you have a billboard, what you're trying to do is to get the public to look at your billboard over all the other competing signs on the highway. And here's what the science says of that. Basically, when you look at a color, your brain scientifically searches out the opposite of that color. Don't ask me why, it's just a fact. So you probably have seen those parlor games before. For example, you stare at a US flag, but all the colors are scrambled. They're all wrong. And then you stare at a white sheet of paper, and the US flag colors suddenly appear.
And that's because your brain automatically reacts when it sees a color to the exact opposing color. And the opposing color to green is red. And that's a very important point, because typically when you're out driving around on the highway, looking, looking at what's along the highway, most of it is green. Trees are green, bushes are green, grass is green. So that means that your brain is looking for the color red the entire time you're driving around in an environment of green. And that very simply unlocks the mystery of why you see so many red signs. Look at all of the different fast food establishments, for example, that utilize red in their logo. McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A. The list is endless. They all use red. In fact, they all use one certain color of red, kind of a fire red color, which is the exact polar opposite of the kind of fresh green that you see in nature. So that's why people use red. Now, in other cases, in certain other environments, you may not see as much green. If you're driving in an urban location, for example, then what's the dominant color? Well, dominant color you would see then would be a lot of grays and white. Concrete, glass buildings.
So what's the exact opposite of white? Well, of course, that color is black. So it might be if you had a billboard in a more urban setting, not where there's any greenery at all, maybe you would segue from red to black. Or let's say that you were on an expansive road where there are a very large number of signs and all those signs, which have read the same science theory we're talking about, decide to go with red to be different. It's possible your sign should be green because you're trying to play off against your mind seeing all of those red signs. But that's the first rule of color theory is visibility. Visibility is simply selecting colors that are contrarian to what you are seeing in that same environment from everybody else. Not any more complicated than that. But definitely the go-to color, the safe color for billboards in more of a rural setting with lots of green trees and grass is red. And that's why you see red so prominent. It also explains why colors that are earth-toned and billboards that are green have such poor visibility. You could have a sign where the predominant colors are tan on a green background, and people will not even see that thing because their brain will never even alert them to the fact they should look.
So if you want to have a really successful billboard, it needs to be red, or it needs to be a color that's the exact opposite of what you see. It's not just picked randomly. It's not just picked because of the advertiser's taste or logo. It needs to be based on the science of color theory. Then we enter into contrast. And many times contrast is more important than visibility, because if you can't read the letters on the sign, what's the purpose of the sign? There really isn't any. So what is contrast? Contrast is basically a dark color against a light color. And many decades ago, all the way back in the 1920s, advertisers started testing colors strictly based on contrast. And here were the results. They found that the number one contrast of colors, and this one will shock you, was black on yellow. Now you might say, now wait, why not black on white? Well, it turned out that the human brain can actually visualize black on yellow better than it can black on white. And that's why legal pads, if you ever go to the office supply store and you look at the legal pad department, you'll see they sell two kinds of legal pads, white legal pads and yellow legal pads.
And if you buy a yellow legal pad and you write on that thing with a thick black marker, that is imminently more visible than that thick black marker on a white legal pad. So you can quickly prove it to yourself that black on yellow has higher contrast than black on white. But what's next in the contrast chain? Well, black on white. That's the number two position. And then you go down a couple notches down to red on white, blue on white, green on white, brown on white. And all of those colors, while having high contrast, may not be all that appealing. And that's why advertisers typically will sacrifice some of their contrast to the aesthetics of having a background besides white. They also tested what happens if you reverse the colors. For example, what do you get if you have yellow letters on a black background as opposed to black letters on a yellow background? And they found that the black letters on the yellow background in your brain has greater visibility contrast than the reverse. In fact, if you just go to Google, look it up, you'll be able to find the grid. It shows you all of the contrasts in ranking order from best contrast to worst contrast.
Now what happens, however, if your advertiser has a hankering for a color that's not on that contrast chart, can you still use it? Yes, but it must always be a dark color on a light color. There's another issue on the science of color called vibration. And I know you've seen vibration but you didn't know what it was. If you ever see red lettering on a green background, maybe during Christmas, it's really hard for your brain to handle that. In fact, it visually vibrates in your brain because your brain cannot grasp having two dark colors. Even though the colors are different, two dark colors and you trying to read the lettering on two dark colors. So that's always been a very poor choice for a sign. I've seen people try and do billboards for them, trying to be contrarian, be a little different. Some advertising designer comes up with a sign that's got a dark color on a dark color. It's always, always a failure, never, ever works very good at all. So the bottom line to it is if you want to have a successful sign, you need to go with a color that is different, and you need to go with a lot of contrast between dark on a light background. That is always superior to a similar light colored letter on a dark background. We know that much from science.
And then you must at the same time try and come up with the aesthetics that you're looking for. Now, a lot of times in vinyl printed signs, you can get around the aesthetic issue with your pictorial, your photo of whatever it is. So for example, if it's an advertiser who's a restaurant, you could show a beautiful photo of their delicious looking chicken fried steak special. And that could be the colorful part of the sign because we can take that in visually without reading any letters at all. And then, however, have the lettering following the signs that we talked about, having colors that are different from what you see in the surrounding environment and have a high level of contrast. Now, as many people look at signs and catalog them in the brain saying, "Oh, that's a good sign," or, "that's an even better sign." I'm always looking at the reverse. I'm always looking at terrible signs and what makes them particularly bad.
And in most cases, the failure of those billboards is completely based upon their lack of grasping of color theory and the science behind color. So do some study and go to Google, look up all the different issues regarding color. You'll see there's a whole science to it. And the better educated you are on how to use those colors, the better your signs will perform. This is Frank Rolfe, the Billboard Mastery Podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.