Which of the following combinations for text and background should you avoid? In each case, give your reasons. To find the answer, it may help to convert the colors to a different color model or to refer to a color wheel. You can do this by either using either the “Color Spaces” software or by accessing the color selection dialog in a commercial paint package.

a. Text: (60,100,0) HSB
Background: (180,10, 100) HSB
b. Text: (0,0,100) HSB
Background: (180,0 100) HSB
c. Text: (0,0,0) HSB
Background: (180, 0, 100) HSB
d. Text: (0,100,100) HSB
Background: (120,100,100) HSB
e. Text: (300,70,100) HSB
Background: (0, 70, 100) HSB
f. Text: (60, 70, 100) HSB
Background: (120, 0, 100) HSB

a. When either saturation or brightness are zero, it’s not necessary to look at hue.
Text has zero brightness, so it’s black. Background has nearly zero saturation and full brightness, so it’s near white. Black text on a white background is good combination.
b. Both text and background have zero saturation and full brightness, which means both of them are white. Not a good combination.
c. Saturation is zero, so hue is not a consideration. Text has zero brightness, so it is black. Background has full brightness, so it is white. Black text on a white background is a good combination.
d. For both colors, saturation is 100% and brightness is 100% so these are bright, highly saturated colors and should be avoided on this account. Further, a hue of zero is Red and a hue of 120 Green, so this combination will vibrate on the screen and cause eye fatigue. This is a bad combination on two counts.
e. These are not fully saturated, but changing them into RGB, we get a text color of (255,76,255) and a background color of (255, 76, 76), which differ only in blue. For a case of bad eyestrain, try this combination on your screen. Ouch!
f. The text color is pretty well saturated, so check the hue. It’s yellow. The background color has zero saturation, so it’s a shade of gray. Both of them have brightness of 100%, so the shade of gray in question is actually white. When recast as RGB, yellow and white differ only in their blue component, so this is a combination to be avoided.