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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 "ev

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-Interface/dp/012375030X http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Mind-Simple-Understanding-In... or Colin Ware's Visual Thinking for Design: http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Thinking-Kaufmann-Interactive-Technologies/dp/0123708966/ http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Thinking-Kaufmann-Interactive-T... Both of those do a much better job at explaining the hows and whys of the average person's visual perception.

huffman 14y ago
A good counter example to the pop art painter are Baroque painters, who used very dark colors very heavily in their pieces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_painting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_painting
- tripzilch 14y ago
  Not much of those you linked to actually use pure black, but this one comes pretty close: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francisco_de_Zurbarán_018.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francisco_de_Zurbarán_018.... It also happens to show very nicely what's wrong with using pure black as shadows: they're not shadows, they're holes. (what a god-awful painting, btw. and they compare his work to Caravaggio's ... )
billswift 14y ago
He also confuses, maybe conflates would be better, art and design. For example, his statement that black over-powers everything else only applies to black masses - thin black borders or underlining is the best way to focus attention on critical points on a web page without being distracting the way bright colors can be.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  Those thin borders and underline also benefit from not black. #333 is usually the darkest you should go for text and these features.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    I routinely find myself hand-tweaking CSS on sites I visit for #333, replacing it with black. Dual monitors, office, lots of ambient daylight, and occasional sun glare. Drive me freaking nuts. Black text on a very slightly off-white background: not so bad.
ohgodthecat3 14y ago
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.htm http://painting.about.com/od/colourtheory/a/JimMeadersBlack....
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  OP here: No guys, I didn't take the wrong message away from Mrs. Zamula. I am aware of that "never" is not a word that should ever be taken at face value. The same way that I was aware when Mrs. Zamula forbade us from using "I like" while holding critique. You _can_ use "I like" well while giving a critique, but more often than not it means what will follow is garbage. Just like you _can_ use black, and there are absolutely good places to use it, but more often than not you'd do better with a bit of color in there. Thiebaud's work and my photograph aren't evidence of anything other than the fact that shadows in most every image you see (whether it be real life, a painting or a photo) are not black. And that you'd be surprised at how saturated the dark colors around you are. Notice how I never said, "Thiebaud's shadows aren't black, so you shouldn't use black." There were a lot of other words in between. I should have clarified: The black squares actually weren't about dominance at all. I put a large swath of black next to those screenshots because color is relative, and to see how far from black the dark grays in those screenshots actually are, you need a comparison point. --- My other high school art teacher, Mrs. Totten (they taught as a pair), taught me a good lesson about photography. She would always defer to Mrs. Zamula on matters of photography because she readily admitted she had no photographic skill whatsoever. And she claimed that more people needed to acknowledge that fact, despite having their own digital camera. Well... my name is Ian, and I'm no a photographer. But lucky for me.. that has absolutely no impact on my argument whatsoever!
einhverfr 14y ago
Agreed. And if black is artificial, so is white, but we use black and white when designing color schemes for a couple of legitimate reasons. White and black provide constant contrasts to which we can fix all other colors. Our brains see color by contrast, and we process color by contrast. If I have some white, some black, and some blue on a page, chances are that people will see a similar shade of blue on different monitors even if the correction is very different. The color temperature may be different on different monitors but our brain adjusts. White and black provide the tare points. I'd note that the paintings he included in his page, I could spot black on two out of three......
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  > I could spot black on two out of three If you're on a Mac, go to spotlight and open Digital Color Meter. There is no black (0,0,0) in any of those paintings. The blacks you "see" are exactly the subject of this article and parent comment.
  - ianstormtaylor 14y ago
    And while you're at it, note that that Spotlight icon you clicked on isn't pure black either :p
    - vacri 14y ago
      While we're noting things, I couldn't help but continually note that the text on your website is damn hard to read. I'd rather have legible pure black text than text with such low contrast that I have to spend more effort to accommodate it. "Design" is supposed to be a beautiful blend of form and function, and I find it hard to take advice seriously from a website that doesn't care about the latter.
      - tripzilch 14y ago
        I didn't notice at first because this particular article doesn't have that much text, but if you click around ... ouch, yeah no way I'm going to read more than two paragraphs of light-grey text no matter if it's carefully saturated with some warm brown colour or not.
subhro 14y ago
I think the most important thing is the dynamic range. The range which a camera (and our eye) can see is limited. If you extend over the range, colours look, weird. Having said that, I would agree with the justification of contrast. Too much contrast can be a distraction. It is important to have a pure white and a pure black in a photo since it gives a fairly good idea about the whole palette.
geon 14y ago
The issues you mention are outside of the scope of a shortish blog post. I'd say you should use black sparsly. As the article says, most things you think of as black are not really black, and when you have used black somewhere, you can no longer make anything even darker.
- incongruity 14y ago
  >The issues you mention are outside of the scope of a shortish blog post. Hardly. If one is going to claim to be a designer (or profess to have wisdom enough to have a "design tip") then you sure as hell better understand why what you're suggesting is in any way true, ever. If you don't understand the 2nd order explanation (at least) you've got no business trying to explain it to the masses – because you don't understand the boundary conditions. If you do understand those boundary conditions, it should be reflected in the shared explanation, within reason. Further, as explained in that post, the idea is wrong. It's about contrast (and, thus, dynamic range) more than it is absolute color. Indeed, if one wanted to be pedantic, they could point out that #000000 isn't actually real black and that no human has ever actually produced a truly black object. If one wanted to be slightly less pedantic and more particular, one could note that #000000 has a fuzzy meaning anyway as you're depending on the sensor of the image device (when/if it's captured) and then the output device – the rendering of black points (and whites) isn't the same on almost any two devices. Pulling back slightly, even from a novice's perspective, the admonishment to never use black is just wrong. The point is/should be that contrast is important, but too much contrast can also be bad. Black can easily be used in such a way as to not yield overly contrasted images – it just needs to be paired with another color sufficiently dark so as to keep contrast low enough to be acceptable. That is something that happens all of the time, in digital media and otherwise. So, trying to tell anyone that "black is bad" without an explanation leads to stupid design decisions that are made because of incomplete or woefully imprecise understandings of one's audience. You may be okay with that, but I think it's sloppy. It's the stuff that cargo cults and fads are made of – and I expect better from smart people like the author.
  - tripzilch 14y ago
    > Further, as explained in that post, the idea is wrong. It's about contrast (and, thus, dynamic range) more than it is absolute color. Indeed, if one wanted to be pedantic, they could point out that #000000 isn't actually real black and that no human has ever actually produced a truly black object. If one wanted to be slightly less pedantic and more particular, one could note that #000000 has a fuzzy meaning anyway as you're depending on the sensor of the image device (when/if it's captured) and then the output device – the rendering of black points (and whites) isn't the same on almost any two devices. Reading the article I was really hoping he'd mention this--I don't think it's pedantic at all, #000000 on a monitor is not "black" in real life, for similar reasons as his pretty saturated shadows are not. As you say, it's all about contrasts. And once you use #000000, you can't shade anything darker than that. > Black can easily be used in such a way as to not yield overly contrasted images – it just needs to be paired with another color sufficiently dark so as to keep contrast low enough to be acceptable. But in that case the pure #000000 black is actually a stand-in for a really dark colour that the monitor (or other medium) cannot produce. Although, I suppose, there are probably instances where #000000 is exactly the colour you need, but because it's on the far corner of the RGB cube chances are it's probably clamped or rounded-down for something else. Still, in those situations, #000000 is the best you can do.
7952 14y ago
It is seriously lacking, but the underlying point is good. Consider using colors that are nearly black in preference to complete black.

huffman 14y ago

A good counter example to the pop art painter are Baroque painters, who used very dark colors very heavily in their pieces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_painting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_painting

tripzilch 14y ago
Not much of those you linked to actually use pure black, but this one comes pretty close: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francisco_de_Zurbarán_018.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francisco_de_Zurbarán_018.... It also happens to show very nicely what's wrong with using pure black as shadows: they're not shadows, they're holes. (what a god-awful painting, btw. and they compare his work to Caravaggio's ... )

billswift 14y ago

He also confuses, maybe conflates would be better, art and design. For example, his statement that black over-powers everything else only applies to black masses - thin black borders or underlining is the best way to focus attention on critical points on a web page without being distracting the way bright colors can be.

ricardobeat 14y ago
Those thin borders and underline also benefit from not black. #333 is usually the darkest you should go for text and these features.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  I routinely find myself hand-tweaking CSS on sites I visit for #333, replacing it with black. Dual monitors, office, lots of ambient daylight, and occasional sun glare. Drive me freaking nuts. Black text on a very slightly off-white background: not so bad.

ohgodthecat3 14y ago

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.htm http://painting.about.com/od/colourtheory/a/JimMeadersBlack....

ianstormtaylor 14y ago
OP here: No guys, I didn't take the wrong message away from Mrs. Zamula. I am aware of that "never" is not a word that should ever be taken at face value. The same way that I was aware when Mrs. Zamula forbade us from using "I like" while holding critique. You _can_ use "I like" well while giving a critique, but more often than not it means what will follow is garbage. Just like you _can_ use black, and there are absolutely good places to use it, but more often than not you'd do better with a bit of color in there. Thiebaud's work and my photograph aren't evidence of anything other than the fact that shadows in most every image you see (whether it be real life, a painting or a photo) are not black. And that you'd be surprised at how saturated the dark colors around you are. Notice how I never said, "Thiebaud's shadows aren't black, so you shouldn't use black." There were a lot of other words in between. I should have clarified: The black squares actually weren't about dominance at all. I put a large swath of black next to those screenshots because color is relative, and to see how far from black the dark grays in those screenshots actually are, you need a comparison point. --- My other high school art teacher, Mrs. Totten (they taught as a pair), taught me a good lesson about photography. She would always defer to Mrs. Zamula on matters of photography because she readily admitted she had no photographic skill whatsoever. And she claimed that more people needed to acknowledge that fact, despite having their own digital camera. Well... my name is Ian, and I'm no a photographer. But lucky for me.. that has absolutely no impact on my argument whatsoever!

einhverfr 14y ago

Agreed. And if black is artificial, so is white, but we use black and white when designing color schemes for a couple of legitimate reasons. White and black provide constant contrasts to which we can fix all other colors. Our brains see color by contrast, and we process color by contrast. If I have some white, some black, and some blue on a page, chances are that people will see a similar shade of blue on different monitors even if the correction is very different. The color temperature may be different on different monitors but our brain adjusts. White and black provide the tare points. I'd note that the paintings he included in his page, I could spot black on two out of three......

ricardobeat 14y ago
> I could spot black on two out of three If you're on a Mac, go to spotlight and open Digital Color Meter. There is no black (0,0,0) in any of those paintings. The blacks you "see" are exactly the subject of this article and parent comment.
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  And while you're at it, note that that Spotlight icon you clicked on isn't pure black either :p
  - vacri 14y ago
    While we're noting things, I couldn't help but continually note that the text on your website is damn hard to read. I'd rather have legible pure black text than text with such low contrast that I have to spend more effort to accommodate it. "Design" is supposed to be a beautiful blend of form and function, and I find it hard to take advice seriously from a website that doesn't care about the latter.
    - tripzilch 14y ago
      I didn't notice at first because this particular article doesn't have that much text, but if you click around ... ouch, yeah no way I'm going to read more than two paragraphs of light-grey text no matter if it's carefully saturated with some warm brown colour or not.

subhro 14y ago

I think the most important thing is the dynamic range. The range which a camera (and our eye) can see is limited. If you extend over the range, colours look, weird. Having said that, I would agree with the justification of contrast. Too much contrast can be a distraction. It is important to have a pure white and a pure black in a photo since it gives a fairly good idea about the whole palette.

geon 14y ago

The issues you mention are outside of the scope of a shortish blog post. I'd say you should use black sparsly. As the article says, most things you think of as black are not really black, and when you have used black somewhere, you can no longer make anything even darker.

incongruity 14y ago
>The issues you mention are outside of the scope of a shortish blog post. Hardly. If one is going to claim to be a designer (or profess to have wisdom enough to have a "design tip") then you sure as hell better understand why what you're suggesting is in any way true, ever. If you don't understand the 2nd order explanation (at least) you've got no business trying to explain it to the masses – because you don't understand the boundary conditions. If you do understand those boundary conditions, it should be reflected in the shared explanation, within reason. Further, as explained in that post, the idea is wrong. It's about contrast (and, thus, dynamic range) more than it is absolute color. Indeed, if one wanted to be pedantic, they could point out that #000000 isn't actually real black and that no human has ever actually produced a truly black object. If one wanted to be slightly less pedantic and more particular, one could note that #000000 has a fuzzy meaning anyway as you're depending on the sensor of the image device (when/if it's captured) and then the output device – the rendering of black points (and whites) isn't the same on almost any two devices. Pulling back slightly, even from a novice's perspective, the admonishment to never use black is just wrong. The point is/should be that contrast is important, but too much contrast can also be bad. Black can easily be used in such a way as to not yield overly contrasted images – it just needs to be paired with another color sufficiently dark so as to keep contrast low enough to be acceptable. That is something that happens all of the time, in digital media and otherwise. So, trying to tell anyone that "black is bad" without an explanation leads to stupid design decisions that are made because of incomplete or woefully imprecise understandings of one's audience. You may be okay with that, but I think it's sloppy. It's the stuff that cargo cults and fads are made of – and I expect better from smart people like the author.
- tripzilch 14y ago
  > Further, as explained in that post, the idea is wrong. It's about contrast (and, thus, dynamic range) more than it is absolute color. Indeed, if one wanted to be pedantic, they could point out that #000000 isn't actually real black and that no human has ever actually produced a truly black object. If one wanted to be slightly less pedantic and more particular, one could note that #000000 has a fuzzy meaning anyway as you're depending on the sensor of the image device (when/if it's captured) and then the output device – the rendering of black points (and whites) isn't the same on almost any two devices. Reading the article I was really hoping he'd mention this--I don't think it's pedantic at all, #000000 on a monitor is not "black" in real life, for similar reasons as his pretty saturated shadows are not. As you say, it's all about contrasts. And once you use #000000, you can't shade anything darker than that. > Black can easily be used in such a way as to not yield overly contrasted images – it just needs to be paired with another color sufficiently dark so as to keep contrast low enough to be acceptable. But in that case the pure #000000 black is actually a stand-in for a really dark colour that the monitor (or other medium) cannot produce. Although, I suppose, there are probably instances where #000000 is exactly the colour you need, but because it's on the far corner of the RGB cube chances are it's probably clamped or rounded-down for something else. Still, in those situations, #000000 is the best you can do.

7952 14y ago

It is seriously lacking, but the underlying point is good. Consider using colors that are nearly black in preference to complete black.