gordo
Well-known member
Below is an official looking fake invoice that was sent out in the hopes that the receiver - likely a secretary in a large business - would pay, since it appears legitimate and is for a relatively small amount.
Note that all the commands to pay use colors that have a strong tonal contrast with their background – white against dark blue, black against light blue or white. However, the disclaimer that reveals that this is not an actual invoice but a solicitation to accept an advertising offer is printed using color contrast rather than tonal contrast – yellow lettering against a blue background.
The designer of this "invoice" has brilliantly leveraged an aspect of human vision that puts a priority on tonal contrast rather than color contrast. By making the tone of the yellow disclaimer virtually identical to the screen tint tone of the blue background – the text effectively disappears, or at least becomes very hard to see or read.
Less sophisticated designers usually, and wrongly, believe that color contrast is a way to make text stand out from its background, i.e. they typically believe that the color contrast of, for example, yellow against a blue background should make text stand out and be more readable.
Interestingly, the give-away, in this example, is that a slight misregistration of the yellow text against the light blue background has increased the contrast of the letter edges slightly and made the disclaimer, just barely, more readable.
Note that all the commands to pay use colors that have a strong tonal contrast with their background – white against dark blue, black against light blue or white. However, the disclaimer that reveals that this is not an actual invoice but a solicitation to accept an advertising offer is printed using color contrast rather than tonal contrast – yellow lettering against a blue background.
The designer of this "invoice" has brilliantly leveraged an aspect of human vision that puts a priority on tonal contrast rather than color contrast. By making the tone of the yellow disclaimer virtually identical to the screen tint tone of the blue background – the text effectively disappears, or at least becomes very hard to see or read.
Less sophisticated designers usually, and wrongly, believe that color contrast is a way to make text stand out from its background, i.e. they typically believe that the color contrast of, for example, yellow against a blue background should make text stand out and be more readable.
Interestingly, the give-away, in this example, is that a slight misregistration of the yellow text against the light blue background has increased the contrast of the letter edges slightly and made the disclaimer, just barely, more readable.
