A Surprising Challenge in the Studio
I remember the day I realized one of our new designers saw the world a bit differently. He was an exceptionally skilled graphic designer—fluent in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Figma, even Canva. His layouts were sharp and his typography choices were on point. Yet, when it came to colors, something was off. In one website mockup, he paired what he thought was a subtle blue-gray background with a vibrant accent. To the rest of us, however, the background appeared greenish, clashing with the design. In another project, a logo that should have been red came out looking a muddy brown. It turned out that this talented designer was partially color-blind, and he hadn’t mentioned it initially. He wasn’t completely color blind—he could see colors—but he routinely confused certain shades of blue, red, green, and grey. For him, some colors looked so similar that distinguishing them was guesswork. This led to understandable missteps in his early designs.
At first, I was concerned. How could a graphic designer—someone who works with color constantly—thrive with a color vision deficiency? But as I soon learned, colour blindness (or Colour Vision Deficiency, CVD) in design is more common than one might think, and it’s far from an insurmountable hurdle. In fact, working with a color-blind designer opened my eyes (no pun intended) to new ways of thinking about color, accessibility, and collaboration in the creative industry.In this post, we’ll explore what CVD really is and how it affects creative work. We’ll share real examples of designers who navigate the world of color differently, and discuss the challenges they face with brand palettes, user interfaces, and visual communication. Most importantly, we’ll highlight actionable strategies, tools, and inclusive practices that help color-blind designers excel at their jobs. Whether you’re a color-blind creative or a team leader, there’s a lot to learn about designing with clarity and communication at the forefront — regardless of perfect color perception.
(For a deeper dive into color perception theory and the philosophy of colours, see our companion blog post on the philosophy of colours.)
Understanding Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD)
Colour Vision Deficiency, commonly known as color blindness, is the reduced ability to see or distinguish certain colors under normal lighting. Despite the term “color blindness,” very few people see no color at all. In reality, most individuals with CVD can see many colors, but they have trouble telling certain hues apart. For example, red-green color blindness (the most common type) makes it difficult to distinguish shades of red and green, especially when they’re adjacent or of similar intensity. Someone with this condition might look at a bunch of colorful mosaic patterns and not pick out a number hidden within (as in those famous Ishihara dot tests), even though a person with typical vision sees it clearly. Being red-green color-blind doesn’t mean seeing the world in grayscale – it means some wavelengths of color overlap or get “muddied” together, so the subtle differences between, say, certain greens and browns or blues and purples, aren’t apparent.
What causes CVD? In most cases, it’s an inherited condition. Our eyes have three types of cone cells (photoreceptors) tuned to different ranges of light wavelengths (roughly red, green, and blue). CVD occurs when one or more of these cone types is missing or not working properly, often due to genetic factors. If a cone type is absent or deficient, the colors it normally perceives can “drop out” or become hard to distinguish because the brain has to rely on the remaining cones to interpret those light wavelengths. The result: colors that might look vividly different to most people can appear very similar to someone with CVD. There are a few varieties of CVD, including deuteranomaly/deuteranopia (difficulty with greens), protanomaly/protanopia (difficulty with reds), and the rarer tritanomaly/tritanopia (difficulty with blues and yellows). Complete color blindness (monochromacy), where the world is seen in shades of grey, is extremely rare.
CVD is also more common than many realize, especially among men. It’s estimated that about 1 in 12 men (8%) and around 1 in 200 women (0.5%) have some form of color vision deficiency. In a graphic design team of, say, 10 people, there’s a decent chance one might have a mild color vision issue without it ever coming up in conversation. Many people with mild CVD may not even know it until they stumble upon a test or a situation (like a design task) that exposes the difficulty.Designers Who See Differently: CVD in the Creative Industry
When my team discovered our new hire’s color blindness, we weren’t sure how to proceed. Was it going to affect client work? Would he be able to adhere to strict brand color guidelines? These questions are rooted in a common misconception: that good design can’t come from a designer who struggles with color. In truth, color-blind designers have been part of the creative field for decades and have found ways to turn this “limitation” into a different kind of strength.
Real-life example – Herb Lubalin: One of the most famous graphic designers of the 20th century, Herb Lubalin, was color-blind. Lubalin, an AIGA medalist known as the father of conceptual typography, built his career on smart use of typography, form, and negative space – not on color. In fact, many of his iconic works (like the Avant Garde typeface and countless magazine designs) rely heavily on black-and-white contrast and bold shapes. His success is a testament that a designer can triumph by emphasizing other design elements when color is a tricky area. Lubalin once joked that being colorblind and left-handed were hardly assets in the art world, yet his talent and drive clearly carried him to the top.
Real-life example – modern UX/UI designers: In the digital era, there are numerous designers with CVD who openly discuss their experiences. Abhinav Sharma, a product designer at Quora who has strong red-green color blindness, shared that people are often shocked at first – “You’re a color blind designer, WHAT?!” – but he finds it a minor handicap in practice. Color decisions can be double-checked with a colleague on the rare occasions he’s choosing a palette from scratch. Most of the time, he’s working within established color systems or design systems. As Abhinav puts it, “making a color choice between a green and brown is the kind of decision we make rarely enough that you can ask for help and it really isn’t a big deal”. In fact, he notes an upside: “I have to be more disciplined with color, and rely on systems and patterns more. This helps ensure consistency”. By sticking rigorously to style guides, HEX codes, and tested color patterns, color-blind designers often produce very consistent work – a valuable trait in branding and interface design.
There’s also an accessibility advantage to having a color-blind perspective on a design team. Designers with CVD represent a subset of users who see things differently. Sharma quips that he represents roughly “5% of the male population… I can tell the other designers when we make something that is not color blind friendly.” For example, he once reviewed a webpage comp where a paragraph of brown text looked bright red to his eyes, making it all feel like an urgent alert. To the majority of viewers, it was a normal brown, but for a minority of users with similar vision, that design would have felt alarmingly “off.” Because of his input, the team caught a potential issue that others had glossed over. (A fun related anecdote: Facebook’s original blue color scheme was chosen in part because Mark Zuckerberg is red-green color-blind — blue was the color he could see best. Ten-plus years later, nobody’s complaining about that decision!)
Facing stigma and overcoming it: Unfortunately, not everyone in the industry has been understanding historically. One of our designer’s art school professors once bluntly told him, “You are color-blind… you will never make it in this industry”. That kind of statement can be devastating to an aspiring creative. Yet, it’s proven wrong by many real careers. Designers with CVD often gravitate towards areas where color is important but not the sole determinant of success, such as user experience (UX) design, web design, typography, and illustration. One UX designer with red-green deficiency wrote about initially hiding his condition, only to later embrace it as part of his professional identity and even put it in his bio – turning what some see as a weakness into a point of pride and empathy for users. Many have found that once they disclose their color blindness, teammates react positively: it becomes “a singular perspective at the table and a voice for others like me,” as one web designer describes it. In design meetings, color-blind designers can quickly point out if a color palette might be problematic or if information is being conveyed by color alone (which could confuse not just themselves but end-users with CVD). Rather than being a handicap, their condition can make them advocates for accessibility and clarity.
In our case, once we knew about our colleague’s vision, we adjusted our workflow slightly and welcomed his input on color choices. It turned out he had developed some clever workarounds and strengths: an uncanny sensitivity to contrast and value (light/dark), and a habit of double-checking any critical colors. He also wasn’t shy to ask, “Hey, is this color what I think it is?” which in a collaborative studio is absolutely fine. The initial surprise gave way to a team-wide learning experience about designing more thoughtfully. In the next sections, we’ll dive into those challenges and the strategies and tools that help color-blind designers succeed.
Challenges Color-Blind Designers Face in Creative Work
Working in graphic design when you’re color-blind can present unique hurdles. Here are some of the key challenges that come up, especially in areas like branding, UI design, and any work where color carries meaning:
Choosing & Matching Brand Colors: Brand guidelines often specify exact colors to use for logos, backgrounds, and accents. A designer with CVD might struggle to discern slight differences in brand hues. For instance, if a style guide has two shades of green (one for primary buttons, one for secondary accents), those might look virtually identical to a color-blind designer. Without assistance or numeric references, it’s easy to mistakenly pick the wrong shade. Confusion between colors like navy blue and purple, or red and brown, can lead to off-brand results if not caught. One designer recounts mixing up colors in a branding project and feeling like a fraud—“how can I work on design projects for clients if I can’t tell these basic colours apart?” was his worry. The confidence hit can be as much a challenge as the technical mix-up itself.
User Interface Alerts and States: In UI and web design, specific colors often indicate states (think red for errors, green for success, etc.). A color-blind designer might not perceive the intended contrast between, say, the red error text and a green success message if the hues are not chosen carefully. Even more, if the designer themselves can’t tell those apart, they have to be extra cautious to ensure they’re using the correct style for each state. As one color-blind UX developer noted, “depending on what green you use for your ‘success’ color, [it] might actually look red or even yellow to someone who has extreme protanopia like me”. Likewise, a pale yellow might be indistinguishable from a light green for some individuals. The challenge is twofold: the designer must correctly apply the intended colors (despite their own vision), and they are also hyper-aware of how end users with CVD might struggle if those colors aren’t well chosen.
Visual Communication & Informational Graphics: Graphics like charts, infographics, and maps often rely on color coding to convey information. A color-blind designer creating a pie chart, for example, has to be mindful that the palette works for everyone. If they rely on their own vision, they might inadvertently pick colors that look distinct to them (perhaps due to brightness differences) but are actually confusing to a normal-sighted person or to another color-blind person of a different type. Conversely, a palette that looks fine to a non-CVD person might have segments that are indistinguishable to our color-blind designer. Translating data into color safely is a known pain point. Many in this situation learn to incorporate patterns or labels by default (e.g. striping one section of a bar chart in addition to coloring it) so that you’re not leaning on color differentiation alone.
Collaborative Hiccups: Little things in a team setting can pose challenges. Imagine a creative director giving feedback: “Make this section stand out – maybe use a bright red here.” To a red-blind designer, “bright red” is not a very clear instruction. Or a teammate might highlight a layer in Photoshop by name of color (“the green overlay on the image”) which could be misidentified. These situations require clarification, otherwise miscommunication can occur. Our designer often had to politely ask, “Which one is the green overlay? Can you give me the HEX code?” Such questions are simple, but they underscore how much design communication assumes normal color vision.
Emotional and Creative Frustration: Perhaps the most pervasive challenge is internal. Many color-blind creatives feel a bit of imposter syndrome or frustration that they “should” be able to do something as basic as distinguish colors. One designer wrote about how, for years, he avoided telling anyone about his CVD and stuck to monochromatic designs or very safe palettes in his personal work. He even dressed in greyscale to avoid mismatching clothes. This self-imposed limitation can prevent designers from fully exploring creative color usage – until they find ways to adapt and tools to support them. It’s worth noting that color is just one aspect of design. Layout, typography, form, hierarchy – none of those are off-limits to someone with CVD. In fact, many color-blind designers channel their energy into excelling in those other areas, ensuring their work stands strong even if the color part is a team effort.
Despite these challenges, color-blind designers can and do produce wonderful, vibrant designs. The key is that they (and their teams) develop workarounds and strategies to bridge the gap between what the designer sees and what the end product needs to achieve. Let’s look at some of those strategies next.
Strategies and Tools for Color-Blind Designers
A color vision deficiency doesn’t have to derail a design career. With the right approaches, designers with CVD can work effectively and even turn their condition into an asset. Here are some actionable strategies and tools that color-blind designers (and their teams) use to ensure great results:
Leverage Numeric Color Codes and Styles: Rather than relying on eyesight alone to pick colors, color-blind designers often lean on the objective data behind colors – HEX codes, RGB values, and predefined style guides. Our designer quickly became fluent in the language of HEX values (e.g. knowing that #0044CC is a specific shade of blue) and would double-check that the code matched the brand guidelines. One designer describes how he would “memorize and rely on the hex-codes to get me where I needed… It was foolproof since it’s data-driven.” By treating color selection as a precise technical task (enter the code for the approved color) rather than a visual guess, you remove ambiguity. Modern design tools help in this regard: software like Adobe XD, Figma, or Sketch allow you to save a palette of exact colors for a project. This way, a color-blind team member can simply use those swatches knowing they are correct. It’s also a good practice to label color styles with descriptive names (e.g. “Brand Red 500” or “Primary Blue”) so that everyone, regardless of vision, refers to colors consistently.
Use Color Blindness Simulators: Ironically, most color-blind designers will benefit from using color blindness simulation tools – not to see what they see (they already know that!), but to simulate other types of color vision or show teammates how certain palettes appear to people with CVD. Tools like Sim Daltonism (for Mac) or Colour Oracle (cross-platform) let you apply filters to your screen and preview designs as a person with protanopia, deuteranopia, etc., would see them. Designers with CVD can use these to double-check that, say, a chart they designed with their own compensations in mind still holds up for someone with a different type of CVD. Conversely, some color-blind creatives use these simulators in reverse – to show their colleagues “Here’s how I see this design.” This can foster empathy on the team. Many design applications now have simulator plugins or built-in features; for example, Adobe Photoshop has a Proof Setup for color blindness, and Figma has plugins that mimic various vision deficiencies. By running a quick simulation, you can catch potential problem areas early.
Rely on Accessibility & Contrast Tools: Embracing accessible design principles is a win-win. Color-blind designers often naturally gravitate toward high-contrast, well-differentiated visuals because they need them to work comfortably. This in turn benefits users with low vision or color blindness. There are tools specifically for checking contrast and accessibility: for instance, the WCAG Contrast Checker or apps like Contrast (which one designer praised for integrating into his workflow) help ensure that text and background color combinations meet accessibility standards. These tools provide numeric contrast ratios and flag when combinations are too low-contrast. A color-blind designer can use them to objectively validate that, say, light grey text on a yellow button is a bad idea, even if they themselves can’t see the color well. Lately, design frameworks like Bootstrap include built-in accessible color schemes, and color-blind designers can take advantage of these preset palettes that are chosen for clarity. In short: let the math and science of accessibility back you up.
Choose Friendly Color Palettes (or Alter Them): If you have the freedom to pick project color schemes (for a new brand or graphic), try to choose colors strategically that minimize confusion. This might mean avoiding the classic problematic combos like pure red vs pure green next to each other. Instead, opt for palettes with hues that are distinguishable by shape or lightness as well as color. For example, blue and orange have a strong contrast for most types of CVD, as do purple and yellow. Using a tool like Paletton (Color Scheme Designer) in color-blind mode can ensure the palette you create is inherently safe. Also, test your palette in grayscale – if it works in pure black-and-white (i.e., all elements are still distinct), then differences in color are likely an added bonus rather than the sole differentiator. High-contrast palettes (dark vs light) often naturally cater to CVD because contrast is something most people can perceive even if the hue isn’t clear.
Add Patterns, Textures, or Labels: A clever strategy in graphic design and illustration is to pair color with another visual cue. If you’re designing a map with multiple regions, don’t rely on color fill alone – you can add subtle patterns (stripes, dots) to areas or use different hatch marks, so that even if two colors look the same to someone, the pattern will set them apart. In UI design, this might translate to adding an icon plus a color change for error states (e.g. a red stop-sign icon along with the red text for an error message). In branding, if you have a style where sections of a report are coded by color, consider also numbering them or using a unique shape or imagery for each section. Explicit labeling can help too; one UX designer noted the simple but effective example of Crayola crayons – they print the color name on each crayon wrapper, so a color-blind child (or designer!) can read “purple” or “green” and be sure they have the right color. Incorporating text labels for colors in internal design files (like layer names or annotations that say “This area in blue indicates X”) can assist a color-blind designer working on the file later. Essentially, you’re reducing reliance on color alone as the carrier of information.
Team up and Double-Check: Design is often a team sport. Color-blind designers shouldn’t feel they need to hide their condition – in fact, being open about it means teammates can help fill any gaps. If you’re unsure about a color, a quick second pair of eyes from a colleague can save trouble. Many color-blind designers report that once they told their team, “I’m color-blind, so I might ask for help now and then,” the reaction was supportive and even appreciative. Our team’s workflow now includes an informal extra step: if a design involves a complex color task (like custom illustrating something with many shades), the designer might ask another teammate to review the colors specifically. Far from being a hassle, this actually improved our overall quality control. We caught a few subtle issues we might have otherwise missed, like low contrast on a chart, because our color-blind designer flagged them and we collaborated on a fix. Also, leveraging tools in team settings helps – for example, we all use the same simulator plugin to quickly see how a design looks for CVD, ensuring we’re on the same page.
Education and Practice: Finally, designers with CVD benefit from learning a bit more about color theory and their own type of CVD. By understanding exactly which colors are problematic and why, you can predict where you might have trouble. For instance, a red-green color-blind designer might learn that using saturation and brightness differences is key – if two colors differ enough in brightness, he can tell them apart even if the hue is confusing. Many train themselves to recognize colors by context or position (e.g. the top light on a traffic light is red, the bottom is green – a trick color-blind drivers use). In design terms, this could mean if you know the left swatch in the palette is the warm red and the right swatch is the green, you won’t mix them up despite how they look to you. Some also experiment with assistive technologies like color identifier apps that speak out the color name or special glasses (such as EnChroma glasses) that can enhance certain color distinctions. While such glasses don’t “cure” color blindness, a few designers have said it helped them appreciate certain vibrant colors more and understand how others see them – useful when working on projects where color nuance is critical.
By using a combination of these strategies, color-blind designers can not only avoid mishaps but actually produce designs that are robust and accessible. In many ways, these practices are just good design hygiene for everyone. After all, if your color scheme is clear and effective for someone with limited color vision, it’s likely to be clearer for fully sighted users too.
Building an Inclusive Design Environment
It’s not just on the individual designer to adapt; design teams and brand managers play a big role in making the creative process inclusive and ensuring final outputs are accessible to all users (including those with color vision deficiencies). Here are some guidelines for teams to follow:
Foster an Open Culture: Encourage an environment where differences like color blindness are openly discussed, not hidden. If a designer or colleague discloses they have CVD, take it positively. Remember that a lack of immediate understanding of certain colors is not a lack of talent or taste. As one designer put it, “People who don’t accept it or figure out how to use that unique feature to benefit the work are not the people you want to surround yourself with.” Embrace the unique perspectives on your team.
Use CVD-Friendly Collaboration Practices: Small adjustments in how the team works can make a big difference. For example, when giving feedback or discussing designs, refer to elements by more than just color (“the top banner background” or “the icon with the green circle” instead of only “the green part”). Provide designers with the exact color codes for any new colors you want used, rather than saying “make it a bit more teal” which can be ambiguous. In design handoffs and documentation, always list colors by name or value alongside swatches. This helps everyone, not only those with CVD.
Ensure Brand Assets Are Accessible: If you are a brand manager or creating a brand style guide, consider including guidance for color-blind usage. Some forward-thinking brands test their color palettes under common CVD simulations to avoid combinations that clash or disappear. At minimum, avoid requiring color-dependent tasks – for instance, don’t have a logo version where distinguishing elements are only separated by a red/green difference. Provide alternatives like texture or outline differences. If your brand primary colors happen to be a troublesome combo (say, one shade of orange and one shade of green that look identical to deuteranopes), be aware of that in marketing materials and provide secondary patterns or labels in contexts where those colors might be side by side.
Incorporate Color Accessibility into QA: Just as you would proofread copy or test a website on mobile, build in a step to check designs for color accessibility. There are plenty of tools (as discussed above) to simulate color blindness or to verify contrast ratios. Make it a habit for your team to run these checks. If you don’t have a color-blind person on the team, find test users or use online communities to get a quick reality check on important projects. Nothing beats real feedback from someone who actually has CVD. This testing isn’t just about catching issues for end-users; it can also reveal if your process inadvertently excluded a colleague. For instance, if a critique file uses color-coded comments (one team member’s comments are in red, another’s in green), a color-blind reviewer might not be able to follow. Little adjustments like using labels (“John’s comments, Sarah’s comments”) alongside colors can help.
Follow Universal Design Principles: Adopting universal design or color universal design (CUD) principles ensures your visuals communicate to everyone. Key principles include using balanced color schemes that a wide range of people can distinguish, combining color with other indicators (shapes, position, line styles) to encode information, and clearly naming colors when referring to them in text or instructions. For example, in a style guide you might say “Use Orange 300 (bright orange) for highlights” instead of just showing an orange swatch that some might misidentify. In user interfaces, never rely solely on color to indicate state – pair it with an icon or text. A well-known guideline is that a design should be understandable even in grayscale; try printing your design in black and white or applying a monochrome filter – all critical information should still be clear.
Train and Sensitize the Team: Conduct a short workshop or share materials on color vision deficiency with your designers. It’s an eye-opening exercise to have everyone take a quick Ishihara color blindness test, for instance, or use a simulator on a current project to see how it looks for someone with protanopia. Educating the team demystifies CVD and moves it from being a niche concern to just another facet of user diversity. The more your team understands about color blindness, the more naturally they will incorporate those considerations into everyday design decisions. When designers realize, for example, that 4.5% of the entire population might struggle with a certain combination, they see the relevance immediately.
By embedding these practices, design teams and brand managers ensure that both their process and their products are inclusive. It means a color-blind designer on the team can work comfortably and confidently, and it means the end designs will be interpretable by color-blind viewers out in the world. In the end, this leads to designs that are clearer for everyone. As one color-blind designer noted, when you can’t rely on color alone, you end up “offering insights others don’t necessarily have” and addressing issues sighted colleagues might overlook. That’s a net positive for the quality of the work.
Conclusion: Clarity Over Color
Our journey with a color-blind designer on the team turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It challenged us to rethink the way we choose and communicate colors and to refine our design processes to be more robust. We learned that great design is about clarity, communication, and creativity – not about having perfect color vision. A harmonious layout, a clear message, a powerful idea: those elements of design speak louder than a precise Pantone shade.
Colour blindness in graphic design is not a roadblock; it’s just a different road. Designers with CVD have succeeded by leveraging other strengths, using tools to fill gaps, and reminding the industry that design is for everyone. In a way, they embody what all design strives for: making content accessible and understandable, regardless of differences in perception. As a creative director, I’ve come to value the “different eye” a color-blind designer brings. It’s a perspective that keeps us honest about our color choices and encourages us to design with more intention.
So if you or someone on your team is color-blind, don’t view it as a deficiency to work around silently. Instead, see it as an opportunity to enhance your designs. By focusing on contrast, form, and meaning—and by using the right tools and teamwork—you can ensure that your work shines brightly (pun intended) for every audience. In the vibrant world of graphic design, communication trumps color every time. The ultimate goal is a design that communicates clearly and inclusively. If that goal is achieved, then it doesn’t matter whether the person who crafted it can fully distinguish red from green. In the end, what matters is that they can distinguish good design from bad – and that has very little to do with color perception, and everything to do with insight, skill, and heart.
Design is about clarity and communication — not perfect color perception. And that’s something we can all see eye-to-eye on.
