Non-Designer’s Type Book, The, Second Edition

Why use black-and-white color?

If you add color to your heads and subheads by using a typeface with a heavier weight, or if you perhaps set a quote or a passage or a short story in a different “color” (as in a pull quote), the page becomes more visually appealing. If it’s visually appealing, readers are more likely to stop on a page and actually read it. And that’s the point, right?

Besides making the page more inviting to read, this change in color also helps organize the information. Below, which of the two arrangements gives you an instant visual impression of what’s going on, as opposed to having to read the actual text to see what the organization is?

With this page being so dull and gray, it is not instantly clear whether there are two ...