Re: Monitor bezel (edge) color
Re: Monitor bezel (edge) color
- Subject: Re: Monitor bezel (edge) color
- From: David Morgenstern <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 10:22:38 -0700
Kirk David wrote:
I'm looking into buying a new high-end 21/22" monitor for color critical
work. Among all the usual requirements, I've also been considering what
color is best for the bezel or edge area of the monitor. I have heard some
people say gray is better, other say black, others say it doesn't matter.
The old Radius monitors seem to be all gray, but Barco is black, and Lacie
is blue, Sony and Viewsonic are beige.
According to Karl Lang, who worked on the Radius-branded ColorMatch
displays, the custom gray plastic was specifically chosen to assist
in color evaluation. (For the record: I worked marcomm for the
now-defunct miro displays, the company that bought the ColorMatch
line from the also defunct Radius.) The gray avoided creating an
alternate white reference to the eye and provided a neutral frame for
both colors as well as shades of black. It also wouldn't cast its
color back to the glass of the screen. Remember that the ColorMatch
system also came with a hood of the same color and the "stealth" coat
to avoid reflecting the user's clothing colors on the screen.
Is it truth or voodoo? I'm no color scientist. And I don't know if
a color philosophy -- other than cost or marketing -- goes into the
enclosure choices for other brands. Certainly, the ordinary beige
color is chosen only for for its low cost to the manufacturer (an
important point in a commodity product with razor thin margins).
Anything custom costs more for production and maintaining a SKU.
Consider the lost tribes of iMac.
One could just buy a big piece of gray color matte board and make a
frame and hood for the display, regardless of its case.
David Morgenstern
www.davidmorgenstern.com
--
==**==
David Morgenstern is a freelance editor and branding consultant
based in San Francisco. He is currently an associate editor at
Macintouch, the Mac news and information site, and a contributing
editor at Creativepro.com, the online resource for creative
professionals. You may also remember him as the former Editor of
eMediaweekly and MacWEEK, or recently as the former Director of
Marketing Communications at TeVeo Inc.
Now that you know my work history (whew!), I can be reached at
email@hidden. More information is available at
www.davidmorgenstern.com. My cell phone at (650) 208-3208. I look
forward to hearing from you.