THE NON-DESIGNER'S TYPE BOOK

Color as in crayons

"Color" is a term with various interpretations, one of them, obviously, being
color. When you are using actual colors, like those in a crayon box, an
important thing to keep in mind is that warm colors (reds, oranges) come
forward and command our attention. Our eyes are very attracted to warm
colors, so it takes very little red to create a contrast, to catch your eye, to
lead you around the page. It is easy to overdose on warm colors by apply¬
ing too much in too many places. I know you paid for that second color,
but I guarantee it will be more effective if you use it in small doses. I also
know it is hard to convince your boss ofthat. Find examples of where color
has been used sparingly to great effect and keep those examples in a file.
Also find samples of color being used obnoxiously. I have a newsletter in
my file that uses a second color of an ugly red—this ugly red covers over
half of the newsletter, defeating the purpose of using color to make important
items stand out.

Cool colors (blues, greens), on the other hand, recede from our eyes. You
can get away with larger areas of a cool color; in fact, sometimes you need
more of a cool color to create an effective contrast on the page. But even
with cool colors, if the point of the color is to emphasize a point or to add
a sophisticated splash, less is usually more.

Scribble some red color in this little shape. <; Л-
Hold the page up and glance at it. Where >^i
does your eye land first? Tiny spots of color
are powerful.

. 159

Ornaments

о**

and Dinqvats

#a Ornaments and dingbats are delightful and easy ways to add visual
interest to your pages. They are simply little decorative elements you can
set along with your type because they are characters in the font. tf& Some
fonts, especially expert sets, have ornaments as extra characters. You can
also buy entire sets of them as typefaces. #a What's the difference between
ornaments and dingbats? It's a fuzzy line, but you might say that dingbats
are the sorts of little elements you would use as bullets, whereas ornaments
are more sophisticated decorations for more elegant type. But then again
you might also say the two are the same. f& One use for ornaments or
dingbats is as you see here—markers that indicate new paragraphs without
actually making a paragraph space or indent. This can be an interesting
effect for a short amount of copy, but more than one page of it would be
difficult to plow through. Sfia Notice I added more linespace to this page,
in addition to the ornaments; this was to lighten the color (see the previous
chapter) and give a more inviting, open look to this solid block of text that
really should be several short paragraphs. tf&

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