The aspect ratio of television sets is 3:4, that is, the screen is somewhat wider than it is tall. The graphic layout must be designed for these dimensions. Also, the graphic should fall within what is known as the "essential area."

Essential area and aspect ratio.

This area is the screen space within the outer 10% of the screen. Most televisions do not fully display this outer edge. Multiply the diagonal length of the screen by .1 to determine the margin of this outer space on any given monitor.

Generally, design techniques for text are the same for video as they are for print or computer screens. There are several handbooks that cover basic text design. Robin Williams' "The Non-Designer’s Web Book" uses the concepts of proximity, alignment, repetition and contrast. However, because of TV’s low resolution, text for video should be larger and less delicate. Text that contains thin lines will tend to flicker on TV screens. It is better to use sans-serif fonts which have fewer thin lines.

Color displays differently on televisions and computer monitors. Both use RGB (red, green, blue) colors. On computers, RGB values range from 0 to 255. Black is 0% (or 0 value) of all three colors and white is 100% (or 255 value) of all three.

The system used for television doesn't support the range of colors that computer monitors do. The television system in North America is called NTSC. It stands for National Television Standards Committee, but some detracters refer to it as Never Twice the Same Color because of its inconsistency in color on various monitors. Some colors, like bright reds and blues, tend to "bleed" into other colors when viewed on a TV monitor. In order to prevent this, designers should use video-safe colors for computer graphics intended for display on video. Video-safe colors are those that contain RGB values that fall in the middle of the 0 to 255 range. Many graphics software applications have video-safe palettes (also called NTSC palettes) which limit the colors to those considered safe for TV.

As for color design for graphics, lighter text colors on darker backgrounds generally work better than dark on light. For graphs and charts, use colors that contrast for best results. Color wheels can be used to determine good color schemes.

Principles of Using Color

Use of Color in Graphic Representation

Contrast of Color

Mike Wasinski, SDSU Educational Technology Graduate Student