Color For Profit. Louis Cheskin

order to be able to determine whether a design as a whole will have maximum effectiveness as a marketing medium, we must first measure the character of each individual element and then determine the inter-relationship of all the components. Obviously if we determine the nature of each of the elements of a package design or advertising page, we can then proceed to adopt the favorable ones and improve or eliminate the poor ones.

Determining Image Effectiveness

      When the effectiveness of geometric figures or abstract images, such as ovals, triangles, rectangles, scrolls, etc. were tested, we found that some of the images had greater acceptance than others. For example, in comparison with a triangle, circle and rectangle, the oval had a much greater preference rating.

      The tests also showed that a shape or image does not necessarily have great retention power just because it has a high preference or acceptance. For example, although the triangle was both consciously and unconsciously often rejected in favor of the oval, whereas the oval was both consciously and unconsciously widely accepted, the triangle nevertheless remained in the memory with a greater number of people than the oval. In other words, the triangle had a higher retention rating than the oval, although its preference rating was not nearly as high as that of the oval. Rounding the angles of the triangle produced greatly increased acceptance among women and some increased acceptance among men. Increased roundness raised the preference rating further.

      We found that the simpler the image, the higher the preference as well as the retention rating. A multi-angled snowflake drawing had both low preference and retention ratings. We also learned that ovals and triangles had among the highest preference and retention ratings.