Colour+and+Design

Design Skills > Communicating with Colour >Colour Combinations > Colour and Design
Choosing the wrong colours can spell catastrophy for your design or product!



What colour drill to you suggests reliability and ruggedness?

On Target
Our choice of colour can dictate the target audience or consumer fo our design or product. Take a look at the images below. The products (razors) are from the same manufacturer. Who is the target consumer for what razor?



When you start the Design Process you might begin with a Design Plate as basis from which your ideas evolve. The Design Plate will help you define your target audience and this will help you decide on the message you want to convey with your design.

From here you can write down a list of words that identify your design or product and identify the target consumer. Write down a list of words that describe the target consumer for each of the razors.

The words that we use to describe our target consumer or market produces a different image in our mind. Using a Mood Board helps select colours for our design or product.

Try this:- You're a Design Consultant. You specialise in the design of communication equipment, telephones in particular. You have been approached by a number of companies to provide a telephone that will be used within that company's premises. The telephone will be of your company's standard construction but the colour of the 'phone must reflect your clients business. Your clients are a chain of :-
 * Health Food Shops
 * Night Clubs
 * Leather Wear Shops
 * Gymnasiums
 * Sports Wear Shops
 * DIY Stores

Use your knowledge of colour to provide a phone in a colour scheme that reinforces your clients area of business. You can select one or number of client schemes to work on. Give reasons for your choice of colour scheme by annotating your design illustration. You can produce your own line drawing of a 'phone or download an [|image of a phone here] (print off as many as you need):- [|Telephone Template] Back to Colour Combinations