Color Matters: Coral

In ancient Greek mythology, the hero Perseus slayed the Gorgon Medusa, cutting off her snake-haired head and placing it in a magical bag. As he carried his dripping trophy triumphantly home, he stopped to rest on the ocean's shores. As the waves lapped at the bag, Medusa’s blood seeped into the water, turning soft green seaweed into hard, blood-red coral whose shape echoed its snake-haired mother. Born of the blood of a mythical monster, sea coral is said to protect against evil influences.

As a color, coral is nearly inseparable from its nautical namesake. But today, we know coral as a specific shade of orange-pink found far beyond the ocean in flowers, feathers, and fashion.

Discover if the accessible, welcoming hue of coral is right for your brand in Color Matters: Coral.

Responding to Negative Social Media Reviews: a Model

Your business has received a negative social media review or complaint. Now what? If you're unsure where to start, follow the same steps we use when managing our clients’ social media interactions.

Print Finishes

When creating print pieces, we love to consider every point of impact for the intended audience: the moment a suede-textured business card is presented and met with a responding, “Ooooh...”, or seeing a prospective client interact with an intricately-folded accordion brochure.

Explore some of our favorite print finishes that can have as strong an impact on your finished print piece as the design (and message) itself. 

Web Accessibility Testing: False Positives

Organizations eager to comply with website accessibility standards—WCAG—often turn to automated tools. But false positives muddy the work and cost organizations money, reports Deque Systems. They say the average false positive rate is 20%. Deque provides an online calculator to help you gauge the expenses of pursuing false positives. “By reporting issues that don’t exist, [automated tools] confuse developers and QA staff, cause unnecessary work, and harm the overall accessibility efforts for the organization,” comments IT consultant Karl Groves. He adds, “Every minute developers and QA testers spend arguing over whether an issue is real is a minute that could be spent on remediation efforts for issues that are valid.” 

W3C, the organization that develops WCAG standards, explains, “We cannot check all accessibility aspects automatically. Human judgement is required.” How can you ensure compliance? Read our five tips for website accessibility. Talk with someone who’s completed formal training, such as the accessibility program at the University of Illinois. Contact Kristi at The Grossbauer Group for more information.