Red Text on Blue Background

[Augustus]

In that "Help wanted will pay reasonable fee" thread the OP insults somebody
else's site and then in another reply somebody mentions the OP's site is
pretty ugly itself.

So I went to the OP's site and took a look (yeah it is kind of ugly, I will
agree)

But my thought is:
Whenever I see red text or highlights (especially bright red) on a blue
background it really buggers my eyes (I have trouble maintaining focus and
automatically look away, needing to concentrate to look at the color combo)
and gives me a headache after just a few seconds

I was wondering... is that just me?

If it wasn't just me and the color combo affected others like it does me,
then there wouldn't be that many sites that use red on blue... yet there are
a few sites out there that do use red on blue (I do have a minor color
blindness, where I see the color green with a very slight blue tint to it...
so that might be why it does that to me)

 

[nice.guy.nige]

While the city slept, Augustus ([email protected]) feverishly
typed...

In that "Help wanted will pay reasonable fee" thread the OP insults
somebody else's site and then in another reply somebody mentions the
OP's site is pretty ugly itself.

So I went to the OP's site and took a look (yeah it is kind of ugly,
I will agree)

But my thought is:
Whenever I see red text or highlights (especially bright red) on a
blue background it really buggers my eyes [...]

It's not just you. This effect is more apparant with orange instead of red,
but red will do it too. Blue and Orange are "contrasting colours" - if you
turn the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) into a
circle with all the colours radiating out from the centre, you will notice
that orange is opposite blue (and red ain't that far away). A more well
known one is red and orange - note they are also opposite each other.

The colours which are next to each other in this circle (red and orange,
orange and green, violet and red, etc) are "complimentary colours" - this
doesn't mean they are free ;-) but they "go well with each other".

It's amazing what I learned when I was a bouncing castle maker!

Cheers,
Nige

 

[Sid Ismail]

: But my thought is:
: Whenever I see red text or highlights (especially bright red) on a blue
: background it really buggers my eyes (I have trouble maintaining focus and
: automatically look away, needing to concentrate to look at the color combo)
: and gives me a headache after just a few seconds
:
: I was wondering... is that just me?


No - happens to all sane people.

Sid

 

[Jim Higson]

If it wasn't just me and the color combo affected others like it does me,
then there wouldn't be that many sites that use red on blue... yet there
are a few sites out there that do use red on blue (I do have a minor color
blindness, where I see the color green with a very slight blue tint to
it... so that might be why it does that to me)

These kind of extremes are even worse on a TFT because the distance between
the R and B sub-pixels makes the border pixels look
raised/blury/overlapping with each other.

If you really want to make a TFT look odd, try scrolling around a Red and
Blue checkerboard pattern!

 

[The Doormouse]

No - happens to all sane people.

Yet I see it, too. Go fig.

The Doormouse