In defense of blue

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Blue is overused. I know it. So do many iPhone users, furrowing their brow as they search just a moment too long for that one blue app icon in a sea of blue app icons.

Some artists and designers shy away from it for this reason. My buddy Calvin Ross Carl may be one of them:

Being a designer by day, it is easy to become bored with the overuse of blue by big corporations and other businesses. Blue is the color of boredom. No one is ever offended by it.

I mostly agree. Yet I’ve always loved it. My bedroom in high school had light blue walls with dark blue vinyl ellipses tumbling from the furthest corner. Every iteration of tylersticka.com has featured blue prominently.

Why? Because of the boredom neutrality Calvin alluded to. Red’s bombastic, passionate, angry and dangerous. Yellow can turn from bright to bed-ridden on a dime. Green and purple dilute blue’s neutrality with their warmer cousins’ emotional baggage.

But blue’s just blue, man. 100% cool, through and through. It’s the gray of the color wheel. You can indulge your latent monochromatic impulses without foregoing that seductive splash of color.

Blue won’t judge. Blue’s a pal.