What To Do With Blue?!

What To Do With Blue?

Recently my friend and colleague Debbie Josendale, President of Denver-based 3C Marketing Group LLC , asked me for my  color opinion on their new logo. She wanted  a very quick reaction to what I saw from a color perspective.  Having consulted her, and Victor Brown, V. P. Web Technologies, I was intrigued, and eager to peruse the choices.

Blue and green,  she wondered, in line with the firm’s previous logo color design, except no gray, a different hue of blue and green, and greater emphasis on the blue, with just a touch of green for the accent?

Or…the complimentary duo of blue and orange (with a little gradation pzzaz added into the “3C” itself).

Here is my reply, that I would like to share with You:

“I definitely think you should go with the blue and green, hands down.
Blue and orange, while compliments, and able to set each other off well in an interior design or painting, should, in my opinion, be used with caution in graphics/branding/graphical/visual identity.
Just as the other complimentary pairs can reference holidays: red and green- Christmas, purple and yellow, Easter, Blue and orange can reverb to Halloween…even though it is not orange and black!  NOT your message.

I love the blue and green for 3C, for all the reasons we have discussed. I think you can even use a bit more of that green- it looks like a teal, which has plenty of blue in it, and thus is not hyper distinct from the blue..very different than the orange! (Don’t get me wrong…I can really love blue and orange, but I do not think it is right for this context.)”

Deb replied,

“I prefer the blue and green versus the other…and feel reassured with your input. Yes we are changing the logo to better reflect our business.  Our current logo was designed with the idea of positioning to “professional service” businesses.  But as we move forward, I find that a lot of what I do ends up being more in the “branding and messaging” arena with some creative added to it.  So I wanted a new look that is a little more edgy and also has a bit more “creative” touch. “

I think she got it!  Color palettes do not need to have the extreme contrast of a set of compliments, more than two colors, or a lot of bells and whistles to be effective. Blue and green, a combination of one primary (blue), and one secondary (green) color,  is an “analogous” (based on a six color wheel) color combo. They can work very well together, depending on their hue, value, and level of saturation, as blue is a “parent” color of green, and thus they are intrinsically related from the get-go.

Here’s wishing 3C Marketing Group LLC much“creative” touch with that little bit of edge that sets it apart. The revamped 3C is on its way!

BOOKED! (2)

BOOKED! (2)

“The world is so full of a number of things,
I ’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

Today I celebrate an embarrassment of riches…a gaggle of glorious words and images exploring all manner of fascinating facets of the worlds of art, design, graphics, type faces, artist books, and art made from books!.

100 Classic Graphic Design Books… “Bibliographic“: a treasury of graphic design, and the relationship of word to image. Lettering, typeface, symbol, color, shape…savor these elements, and return to this book as a reference and inspiration time and time again.

“Letter and Image” by Robert Massin, French designer and author: “…all things lettering…”

American Type Founders Company (ATF), was the leading producer of type in the world, and produced large specimen books, huge catalogs featuring borders and ornaments among other things.

“Art made From Books, Altered, Sculpted, Carved, Transformed“, is a machine printed book, with what appears to be a hand-sewn binding.  It features artists from around the world who use books as their primary artmaking material, including artist Brian Dettmer, who also wrote the book’s preface. An absolutely fascinating anthology.

“Le Maroc”, Georgia Russell, cut and painted book in circular acrylic case. Amazing.

“Cook Book Ballet Slippers”, Jennifer Collier, vintage cookbook, pages, ribbons, buttons, hand-stitching. you can see the artist’s training in textiles taken to a completely new conceptual level.

Art Books on Book Art…Word and Image chronicling the phenomenon of Word and Image…will wonders never cease?

I certainly hope not.

An embarrassment of riches indeed…just a book away.