Red gets
there first

Bruno Munari said that a well-designed object explains itself, and colour is the first word it speaks. Milanese, designer, artist and teacher, he spent his life showing how shape and colour communicate before any text, from the unreadable books to the Xerographies, experiments where the message was entirely visual.

A red puts you on alert, a blue reassures, a yellow calls out, and all this happens before the brain reads a single word. Today we see it measured in digital products, the colour of a button changes the percentage of people who tap it, the colour of a notification decides whether it generates anxiety or anticipation, the dominant colour of a thumbnail decides whether the thumb stops.

And yet colour is still treated as decoration, chosen by personal taste or by fashion, when it is pure language. The wrong colour tells the wrong story, and no text can correct it afterwards.

Then there is a difference today's craft must know, on screen colour is light, not pigment, it vibrates in a way paper never had, and it must be designed for that vibration. I wonder how many briefs give colour the same attention they give the copy.