Found a stat about color in old ads that made me rethink everything

I was looking at a digital archive of 1950s magazine ads for a project and saw that over 70% of them used only three colors or less. I always thought vintage design was super colorful, but they were actually super limited by printing costs. It makes you wonder if constraints make better design, or if we just have more options now. What do you think is harder, working with a tiny color palette or having every color available?

3 comments

3 Comments

oscarb7122d ago

Read something similar from a design historian once - she said those old ad artists would spend days picking the perfect two colors because adding a third doubled the print cost. @veramiller yeah it's wild how we assume "vintage = colorful" when really they were working with like, a magic marker and three crayons. I guess having unlimited options can make you lazy though, you end up throwing random colors at a layout instead of really thinking about each choice.

veramiller1mo ago

Huh, rethink everything? It was just cheaper to print that way.

maryh961mo ago

Totally get going with the cheap option first. We did that too until the quality started hurting our brand. Ended up switching to a local printer who gave us a bulk deal, which actually saved money long term because we had way less waste from messed up prints. Sometimes the upfront cost is higher but you avoid bigger headaches later.