My grandmother's recipe box taught me about contrast last Tuesday

I was going through my grandma Ethel's recipe cards in her kitchen in Des Moines and noticed she always wrote ingredients in blue pen on yellow paper. The yellow text on white cards was nearly impossible to read, but those blue on yellow combos popped perfectly. It hit me that she figured out accessible color pairing 50 years ago without any tools. Has anyone else found good inspiration from old, unexpected places?

2 comments

2 Comments

val_taylor2d ago

Honestly, is it really that deep? Blue pen on yellow paper is pretty basic contrast. I dunno if we need to call it some secret design wisdom from the past.

reese5512d agoMost Upvoted

Gotta love how we constantly overthink the most basic stuff. It's like when people act like using a fork instead of a spoon for soup is some kind of life hack. Sometimes simple things just work because they're simple, not because there's some hidden genius behind them.