How to decide which colors to use that look most similar across most screens/monitors?

Question

Hi,

I'm baffled. I'm trying to find suitable colors for a logo that would look similar across most monitors/screens. I know it's near impossible, but how does one end up with the color palette that new Google logo and Facebook "blue" uses for example?

I've a monitor that has been calibrated, and a few laptop screens that have default settings. Yet both the Google logo and facebook's look similar (although they aren't using colors restricted to the web safe 216 palette.

Any ideas? thoughts?

Thanks

Answer 1

This is a impossible question, the reason Google & Facebook look the same is because they use colours that are either very strong (Google) or very dark (Facebook blue). There is no magic color that looks the same across all computers. This could be for various reasons like LED brightness or just calibration.

Example: My iMac has a very crisp and bright screen right out of the box but my 6 year old dell laptop doesn't show colours the same way no because their not calibrated but because they are just different computers.

My best advice is to use a very bright or a very dark colour like how Google and Facebook do and hope for something right in the middle. It won't be amazing everywhere but hopefully it will look OK everywhere.

Answer 2

You can't get colors to look the same on all screens...it is impossible.

The Browser safe color pallet is dead. http://kottke.org/03/08/browsersafe-web-color-palette-declared-dead

Use a color pallete generator to see what colors look good together http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/

Answer 3

Contrast. As long as it maintains a similar contrast, then it will appear to be almost the same.