The Return of Cyan

Vista's hot "new" color

Once upon a time (about 20 years ago), monitors could display only 16 colors. There were the easy colors, like black, white, blue and red, and then there were variations that made things interesting, like lime green, bright yellow, magenta, and everyone's favorite (really!), cyan.

Cyan (pronounced like sigh-ann) is a blue-green color, and looks a lot like turquoise or aqua. It's a basic color used in inks and color processing. You have probably seen colors noted as RGB (Red Green Blue) values; maybe you've also seen colors noted as CMY (Cyan Magenta Yellow). Cyan is, in a way, a basic color.

The color cyan became immensely popular during the early days of color computing. It was blue enough to appeal to the majority of computer users (blue is the most popular color in the world), and cyan could be bright enough to be a great accent color.

For years, you could see cyan everywhere you looked. In software, in icons, on websites, it became the "cool" color. It was as though someone said, "Want to look hip and modern? Use Cyan." Microsoft used cyan in their Office icons (at left). Software developers everywhere incorporated cyan into their software, on screens and in graphics (above). And early websites loved cyan.

As more colors became possible for use, cyan gave way to a whole palette of blues - every variety of blue imaginable. As more blue colors and shades became popular, cyan became dated and old.

And then comes Vista. Blue is still cool, but now gradients and glassy looks are the thing. (Gradients are colors gradually shifted from one to another.) If you want to use blue (and it seems that everyone does), and you stick with standard color theory, the gradient can go two ways... From blue to purple-red, or from blue to cyan-green. Purple is not usually considered a real guy color (and software design is mostly a guy thing), so that leaves green. And what is in the middle of a blue-green gradient? It's cyan, baby!

Vista uses cyan not only in gradients, but also in their new glass-look icons. Cyan is back, but it's not your father's cyan. This cyan is shaded in gradients, and highlighted with glass and light effects.

I predict that we're going to see a lot more of cyan in the future: in software, icons and websites. It's a good, safe color, close to blue, but a little different. Strong, professional.. and even a little pretty.

The return of cyan to popularity is a good thing, and inevitable, in its own way. All things cycle: What was old is new again. Go, cyan!

115 Cyan Vista Icons for only $19.95