Saw a poster in a coffee shop that used a single color in a way I never thought of

I was at a place called The Daily Grind yesterday and they had a new poster for a local band. The whole thing was just different shades of green, no other colors at all. It made the band name pop out way more than I expected. I always thought you needed contrast from different colors, but this showed me how much you can do with just one. Has anyone else seen a design that changed their mind about a basic rule like that?

4 comments

4 Comments

rowanwells2mo ago

Monochrome designs can be cool for sure, but calling it a mind-blowing rule change seems a bit much. It's just a color choice, not some huge design revolution. People have been using single color schemes forever in stuff like movie posters or old ads. It worked for that band poster, but it's not gonna work for everything.

jake_carter2mo ago

Rowanwells is right, it's just a color trick.

amymason1mo ago

Saw a movie poster once that was all blues and it had this ghostly face hidden in the clouds. Took me way too long to notice it because my eyes were so focused on the main text. Sometimes simple designs are just better at messing with your head.

caseyclark1mo ago

Oh wow, I had a similar thing happen with a poster for a local art show! It was all different shades of purple, from super light lavender to deep violet. The artist's name was this bright pale purple that almost looked white against the darker background, and it totally caught my eye from across the room. I normally would've thrown in a yellow or something for contrast, but the way the light shade popped against the dark ones was way cleaner than I expected. It really made me rethink how much you can do with just one color family if you play with the brightness levels right.