Don’t just decorate with color. Give color a job to do. That’s what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution did with this Sports page. A brilliant but saturated red was used in the dog illustration and pulled out to highlight the word DOG in the headline and to highlight important labels in the info graphic that surrounds the dog.
The way color is used does two jobs: It helps the reader travel through the information in the illustration and it helps the elements of the dog illustration and the graphic relate to one another. Red is a connecting device, allowing us to perceive the elements as a cohesive package. The red is not a pure magenta, but a mix of magenta and yellow and perhaps black to make the color richer, deeper and more saturated. Red is a color that moves and comes forward, creating activity on the page. A story like this deserves that kind of energy.
Taking the red one step further, notice how the red is used to highlight information throughout the Inside package on the lower right hand side of the package, pulling the eye down through the textual information. And, red was also used on the left side of the page to highlight the labels of sections. The color red is therefore completing the journey through the page. It is not all collected in one part of the page, but is strategically placed throughout the page to help the reader get through the multiple layers of information.
