Why contrast matters and how small tweaks make content more inclusive

Colour is one of the most powerful tools in design. It sets mood, reinforces brand identity and helps guide attention.

But colour also carries responsibility. When contrast isn’t considered properly, even the most thoughtfully written content can become difficult for some people to read.

Designing with accessibility in mind doesn’t mean compromising creativity. In most cases, it simply means making more considered choices.

Contrast is about clarity, not compliance
Accessibility is often framed as a technical requirement. In practice, good contrast is about clarity.
Strong colour contrast helps people:

• read content more easily
• scan information quickly
• engage with less effort

When contrast is too low, text can feel faint, crowded or tiring to read, particularly on screens or in bright environments. Design that prioritises contrast respects the reader’s time and attention.

While industry standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide measurable contrast ratios, you don’t need to become technical to improve outcomes. Testing colour combinations early – across different screens and lighting conditions – can prevent readability issues later.

Common contrast mistakes (and why they happen)
One of the most common contrast issues is the use of white text on warm or mid-tone colours, particularly red, orange and yellow.

For a long time, white text was the default choice for bold backgrounds, and many designers were trained to reach for it instinctively. In practice, in digital environments especially, darker text often provides significantly better legibility on these tones.

For example, switching from white text on a mid-red or orange background to charcoal or near-black can dramatically improve legibility – without changing the brand colour itself.

This challenge becomes even more pronounced with colours that sit in the middle range of lightness. These colours can look balanced and readable at first glance but often struggle to provide enough contrast for text across different screen sizes, devices and lighting conditions.

Some colours sit in a more challenging range for text legibility and often require additional testing, including:

• purple tones, particularly mid-violets and royal purples
• blue-green and teal shades that sit between light aqua and deep navy
• mid-blues that aren’t light enough to be considered sky blue or dark enough to behave like navy
• mid-greens, such as forest, emerald or darkened sage
• muted reds and burgundies
• warm greys with colour undertones

These colours can work beautifully as part of a brand palette but typically require careful tonal adjustment or an accessible text variation when legibility is critical.

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Designer insight:
I was genuinely surprised to learn how often black text outperforms white for readability on warm colours – and how ingrained the opposite instinct can be. It’s now something I test every time.
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Accessibility is rarely front of mind
In most cases, accessibility isn’t something clients raise proactively. Outside of government projects, it’s often not front of mind at all. That means designers are usually the ones introducing the conversation and sometimes pushing back when colour choices look good visually but don’t perform well in real-world readability.

Balancing brand colour with legibility
Strong brand palettes usually include a dark neutral and a light neutral that can be put to work across different contexts.

Introducing an accessible variation of a brand colour specifically for text use helps protect legibility without changing the core brand look. Accessibility matters most for text. Logos, graphics and brand elements can be expressive, but text needs to be read.

Design should never make people work to access your message.

Contrast is one of the quickest and quietest ways to lift readability, accessibility and impact – without losing brand character. If you change nothing else, test your core colour combinations and create an “accessible text” version of your key brand colours. Your audience will feel the difference, even if they can’t name it. And when content is easier to read, it’s easier to trust – and far more likely to drive action.

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This article is part of a broader series exploring how thoughtful design supports clarity, trust and connection — from first impressions through to everyday content creation.