Bright red text in content is a fresh blood stain on a white carpet. It’s the first thing people see—and the last thing they want to see.
Red words draw attention away from everything else and rarely convey good news. They’re stop signs, not guide signs. They put readers on edge. Red, after all, is the color of financial losses and failing grades. And have you ever heard Captain Picard say “green alert” when the Romulans open fire?
I’m seeing more bright red (and similarly obnoxious colors) used in the text of marketing and sales copy these days. It’s as if these colors were just another way to provide emphasis, like bold and italics. Here’s what I’ve noticed:
- Opening words in bullet list items
- Intro paragraphs
- Company and product names
- Hyperlinks
- Multiple CTAs with different functions on websites and in emails
If you must emphasize these things, do it through design and typeface choices. If you still insist on using red for things that aren’t truly urgent, don’t be surprised if readers don’t pay attention when you use red to denote something critical. (Aesop. “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Aesop’s Fables. Perry Index 210.)
This also goes for internal communications. “See my responses below in red” is alarming. “See my responses below in green” is not.
Green is my go-to color for responding to emails. I’m married to a university professor. When we first started dating, I saw him grading a stack of papers with a green pen.
“Why not red?” I asked.
“Red’s a confrontation,” he said. “Green’s a conversation.”
He said the ink doesn’t have to be green. It just has to be any color but red.
When I told him I was planning to write this post, I asked him what he’d do if I sent him a note in red ink.
“I would assume you’d been kidnapped and were sending me a signal,” he said.
In a world of red flags, the green ones stand out.
