6 ms·

I’m not a designer but one thing I’ve noticed is that greys look seem to look better if their tint matches the overal tone the site. For instance a site with ma

I’m not a designer but one thing I’ve noticed is that greys look seem to look better if their tint matches the overal tone the site. For instance a site with many blue colours should use a blue tinted grey. Adding a grey with a green tint for instance would subtly clash.

hammock 8y ago
Think about it in terms of hue. Warm (red/orange) vs cool (blue/green). Your neutrals (like beige, whites, and greys) should match the temperature of the main colors.
detritus 8y ago
Good call - RGB greys risk being cold and clinical; a light tint is rarely a bad idea.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
Absolutely. Good eye. I think this may have to to do with the imperfect nature of our screens. If you do the opposite, for example, mix in some red with a mostly blue palette - it looks bad. On some monitors, grey may have a shade of red. And it looks bad.
- hobbescotch 8y ago
  Yeah whenever I’m putting together the CSS for a side project I’ll spend literally forever going back and forth between greys only to find the look isn’t consistent between my dev machine and my phone.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    When I said 'may have' I should have said 'definitely' Screens definitely differ and colour profiles do differ. So - there is nary such a thing as 'neutral' - in 2019! Meaning, a little 'screen red' may make your blue-tone interface look 'off'. Ergo, tweak your greys a little to match the design. I'm not a Jobs fan, but only someone like him, i.e. who 'cares' about the experience at that level, and who has the tremendous power to influence / fix this might be able to make a difference. Bluetooth is an utter mess in the real world, as are colour profiles. There are 'big apps' like Sketch with some awful situations, and the other one's are almost as bad, and there's no way out. We need a 'user Stalin' to set a simple, clear and unambiguous standard for this that kind of forces and industry outcome. I mean - we're shooting for 'General AI' but we can't even make grey screens ...
- aasasd 8y ago
  > mix in some red with a mostly blue palette - it looks bad As Roma Voronezhsky noted, “When I hear someone saying that red on green looks jarring, I want to scream: look at some strawberry plants!” Let's examine the evidence: https://i.imgur.com/BtsXB7U.jpg https://i.imgur.com/BtsXB7U.jpg or https://i.imgur.com/C7ZbOqV.jpg https://i.imgur.com/C7ZbOqV.jpg And I really love how warm street light fades to blue snow at late dusk or early dawn: https://i.imgur.com/SSd4D8Y.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SSd4D8Y.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/rI5xou0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/rI5xou0.jpg

hammock 8y ago

Think about it in terms of hue. Warm (red/orange) vs cool (blue/green). Your neutrals (like beige, whites, and greys) should match the temperature of the main colors.

detritus 8y ago

Good call - RGB greys risk being cold and clinical; a light tint is rarely a bad idea.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

Absolutely. Good eye. I think this may have to to do with the imperfect nature of our screens. If you do the opposite, for example, mix in some red with a mostly blue palette - it looks bad. On some monitors, grey may have a shade of red. And it looks bad.

hobbescotch 8y ago
Yeah whenever I’m putting together the CSS for a side project I’ll spend literally forever going back and forth between greys only to find the look isn’t consistent between my dev machine and my phone.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  When I said 'may have' I should have said 'definitely' Screens definitely differ and colour profiles do differ. So - there is nary such a thing as 'neutral' - in 2019! Meaning, a little 'screen red' may make your blue-tone interface look 'off'. Ergo, tweak your greys a little to match the design. I'm not a Jobs fan, but only someone like him, i.e. who 'cares' about the experience at that level, and who has the tremendous power to influence / fix this might be able to make a difference. Bluetooth is an utter mess in the real world, as are colour profiles. There are 'big apps' like Sketch with some awful situations, and the other one's are almost as bad, and there's no way out. We need a 'user Stalin' to set a simple, clear and unambiguous standard for this that kind of forces and industry outcome. I mean - we're shooting for 'General AI' but we can't even make grey screens ...
aasasd 8y ago
> mix in some red with a mostly blue palette - it looks bad As Roma Voronezhsky noted, “When I hear someone saying that red on green looks jarring, I want to scream: look at some strawberry plants!” Let's examine the evidence: https://i.imgur.com/BtsXB7U.jpg https://i.imgur.com/BtsXB7U.jpg or https://i.imgur.com/C7ZbOqV.jpg https://i.imgur.com/C7ZbOqV.jpg And I really love how warm street light fades to blue snow at late dusk or early dawn: https://i.imgur.com/SSd4D8Y.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SSd4D8Y.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/rI5xou0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/rI5xou0.jpg