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General guidelines
To create successful color materials, consider the following:
• Use color to aid comprehension, rather than applying colors indiscriminately.
In presentations, graphs, and charts, use color to highlight patterns and
emphasize differences.
• Use color sparingly. In general, fewer colors work better than many colors.
• Use red as an accent color. Red is particularly effective when used in otherwise
monochromatic materials.
• Consider the tastes of your target audience when choosing colors.
• Keep a file of printed color pieces that appeal to you or strike you as effective. Refer to it
for ideas when designing your own documents.
Color wheel
A color wheel like the one in the following figure is a helpful tool for understanding the
interrelation of colors. The colors on one side of the color wheel, from magenta to yellow,
appear to most people to be warm colors, while those on the other side, from green to blue,
appear to be cool. The distance between two colors on the color wheel can help predict how
they will appear when seen side by side.
