Ironing my clothing is always always a reminder that I have an obsession with the color blue that borders on unhealthy. And not just any blue: really dark navy blue. Good thing dyes are synthetic because all of India would still be under colonial rule to keep up with my need for blue clothing.

Blue and me seem to always be brought together. In evangelical summer camp, I was assigned to the Galatians—if I told you that the other team was the Romans who were red, you can guess what color the Galatians were. My high school colors: Blue and gold. My house colors: Page blue. Heck, even that running joke that is the “south bay uniform” wasn’t my choice: my entire wardrobe of blue oxford button downs are actually hand-me-downs from my brother.

I’ve known this for a while now. That’s why when I made my resume five years ago, I chose… red and yellow. The resume is littered with other little design jokes (like the use of rules instead of white space, or the css “resume” garden markup.)

[Favorite colors in design after the jump.]

Which brings me back to my thoughts while ironing:

Favorite colors in design

One time, a manager had come back from vacation. He demanded that the graphic designer redesign a page layout that was about to go live because the color (purple) was unattractive.

“What’s the deal?” I said, “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard.”

The designer sort of shrugged.

“No, I mean really, I thought purple was R—’s favorite color? He should be loving it.”

“Yeah,” The designer agreed. Then he paused for a moment and said quietly, “That’s what he says his favorite color, but that isn’t actually his favorite color.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Blue.”

Americans love their blues

So many sites. So much blue.

Did you know when I got my Humanscale Leap in 2000, I got it in purple¹ because blue was so prevalent in page design?

Yes, even then.