Favorite Presentation Background Color
Date Created:
Last Updated: December 3rd 2009
Quick! What's your favorite presentation background colors? If you said blue, you're not alone. Nearly 42% of the respondents polled at one of my sites provided the same answer. Among the blues, 30% opted for dark blue; while 12% favored light blue.
The greens—both dark and light—come next, with 16% of the votes in their favor. While black, white, violet and purple polled between 7 and 9 percentage each; red, brown, yellow and orange were the least favored of all the colors. Naturally, all these figures are prone to change, since the results are sourced from a live poll. You can actually visit the poll site and vote through this URL:
http://www.ppted.com/dashboard/bgcolour.html
Now, let's analyze the results. Why are blue and green favored so much more than other colors? What is the factor that sets them apart? Finally, why do these factors influence the choice of presentation background colors?
Let's start by going back in time to pre-primary school, especially when we were taught about colors. You might recollect learning something like "The sky is blue" or "The grass is green". Have we, as human beings, preserved part of that in our subconscious? It is quite possible—even nature replicates the state of affairs. Blue and green are definitely the most visible colors of nature.
Although these colors replicate nature, that's no reason for them to be used as often for presentation backgrounds. There has to be some common characteristics in these colors that we need to explore to find out the reason.
We already discussed the first characteristic: nature. Blue and green have a nuance that makes them appear more natural than synthetic. Another characteristic that assails the mind is vastness. Does a vast canvas seem attractive? Blue skies and oceans, green jungles and meadows; they seem to work very well as vast, blank canvases to express, display and deliver. Finally, both these colors are part of the family of colors known as cool, unlike reds and oranges, which are known as warm colors. It could be either one or all of these characteristics that affect us subconsciously, causing us to choose blues and greens as our favorite presentation background color.
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