Design Filter: Do I need to use these colors in a layout?

Here are a bunch of sites for the first red-and-blue-logo companies/entities that come to mind: http://www.chevron.com/ http://www.oxy.com/Pages/Home.aspx http://www.pepsi.com/ http://www.nba.com/ http://www.aa.com/homePage.do http://www.aaa.com http://usa.tommy.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/en/thb2cus http://www.petsmart.com/ http://www.usa.gov/ http://www.dominos.com/ http://www.ihop.com/ It seems to me the worst use the company colors most heavily (e.g. Tommy Hilfiger). Tons of white with red and blue bits is not much better (the USA site is the most extreme example). Sites that are subtle about the company colors and heavy on neutrals seem nicest to me, subjectively, though they're also pretty conservative in feel. The Pepsi site is kind of interesting, once you click through the annoying overlay, but I suspect there's some sort of Windows 8 cross-promotion going on. But the short of it is these companies are heavily invested in an identity system that uses these colors, so they're going to be there, even if there's room to play around with neutrals, different background colors as accents, or design elements (like the Pepsi tiles) with their own palettes.

I have done a bit of design work. I'm afraid that if she doesn't want to go with the red and blue, she'll need to find another client. Clients tend to want what they want. That's what they pay for.

Her best argument may be for her to do a few different mock-ups that she can present to the client that span the range from heavy use of the logo colors to light use as accents to whatever other alternatives your wife would recommend as a design professional. I find that color design is something that is much easier to discuss when you have something to work from than when you're just talking conceptually.

if the client insists she use red & blue as the primary colors then just pick one of those colors and use the other very sparingly as an accent color. she can also use a lighter/darker shade to make it more attractive or use other neutrals to go with it as missmagenta suggested. she just needs to come up with some creative solutions to this design problem. that is what good designers do. she has told them what she thinks and they have responded and now she needs to get creative doing what they hired her to do. remember: the customer is always right. i bet she'll come up with something great because she is being forced to be more creative than she might normally have to be.

If it's what the company wants, give it to them. That, unfortunately, is what a lot of design has become. Clients have become art-directors, and the designers their wrists. She's lucky the client hasn't handed her a mock-up done in Powerpoint "in my spare time."

Oy. No. I mean, there's no authority out there that is going to have written down: you shouldn't use red and blue in a layout. Or, rather, you shouldn't use the logos colors in a layout. Of course she doesn't want to use red and blue as the dominant color scheme. Because, hello!, American flagapalooza! Burning retinas! Argh! But, man, as a prior graphic design website professional, can I just say... your client is just not going to get it. They will make her life a living hell until she acquiesces. How much are they paying her? She should pad her rate and do the best as she can under the circumstances. Pick one dominant color: either blue or red and use it in muted ways. Or pick a neutral grey tone. And run with it. That's the best she can hope for, I think.

I agree with amanda. I say give them what they want and run.

I don't understand why she can't or won't figure out a way to use the existing logo (with the retina-burning, horriblenogoodreandblue) that the client has and wants. Finding ammo to back her up might make her right, but it's not going to make the client happy.

There's a good case to be made for not using red hues at all, given the usability problems it gives colourblind users. There are many simulators out there for different kinds of colourblindness (I use http://michelf.ca/projects/sim-daltonism/) showing just how hard it is for 5-10% of visitors to distinguish reds. So if there are any moves to make red a vital component of way-finding and navigation, she should stop them right there. It's not a good idea. Oh, and colour palettes. http://colorschemedesigner.com