how not to use color in financial reports.
by rick telberg
for hewlett-packard
with color printers becoming commonplace in business, it’s surprising so few tax and accounting professionals have taken a moment to learn a few basic rules about how to use color effectively.
after all, crunching numbers is only part of your job. and crunching numbers, by itself, isn’t enough these days. the numbers are useless – even your analysis is useless – if you can’t communicate effectively. this is where the smart use of color in printed reports becomes essential. you don’t need a degree in art or design. but some guidelines may help.it’s a rare accounting office that doesn’t have at least a color inkjet or two, and with prices starting in the $300 range, color laser printers are selling like gangbusters.
less prevalent, unfortunately, is an understanding of how to use color effectively. there’s an enormous temptation to binge on color-the “now that we have it, we have to use it” mentality. this is pretty much the same phenomena that we saw when desktop publishing first hit it big. nowadays, instead of documents with 15 different fonts and typefaces, we have a mélange of font sizes, typefaces, and colors.
let’s be clear right up front. there are only two major reasons to use color in a document. one is to make the points more understandable, the other is to make the document more approachable.
let’s take the last point first. color in a business document is used to create a specific mindset of trust and approachability. for the most part, this means you should limit your use of color to a logo and whatever business graphics are included in the document. color type, other than as part of the letterhead or a business graphic, really doesn’t have much place in a financial manager’s printouts. we’ve seen well-intentioned practices which used color subheads to draw a more defined division between paragraph subjects. unless your document is a newsletter, this approach usually doesn’t work.
even in this use, there are limitations on color. stick to earth tones, warm browns, blues and greens. unless you are printing a spreadsheet with credits printed in red, have a boutique practice, or work for a firm such as coca-cola, which has a bright colored logo, stay away from colors like red. who wants to see red ink on a financial report anyway?
most accountants have no idea what colors work well together. that’s to be expected, unless your hobby is interior or industrial design. fortunately, this is easy to compensate for. pick up a home decorating magazine on the newsstand, or take out a book on using color in design from the library. either way, you’ll get a good idea what colors work well with others. another approach is to keep a folder of color combinations in magazine ads or articles that you notice. if it’s your copy, rip out the page for future reference.
another thing to keep in mind is that most windows applications don’t limit you to a small choice of colors. by hitting a button marked “advanced” or “more colors”, you will often be presented with a large color palette where you can chose very distinctive shades for your color use. these shades are given in percentages of red, green, and blue, the primary colors. if you make a note of the rgb percentages in the shade that you pick, you can easily duplicate it.
use these shades when you create business graphics, like pie charts. using contrasting colors and hues is a lot more effective and professional-looking than wild patterns.
finally, don’t be afraid to copy a color approach that you see and like. remember, in using color effectively, less is often more.