I'm not a graphics designer by trade but I do know my way around an art board and can tell you the differences in working with Bezier curves or pixel base.
If you know little about color like me, then you also can't explain what 'gray' would mean if black is the absence of (or absorption of) light, while white is the reflection of the whole color spectrum.
These are odd concepts to say the least when working with color levels and mixtures digitally, but what's even odder to me is the notion of mixing something that is the absence of color with something that is the visualization of all color and ending up with what we call gray.
I don't think I'm going out on a limb here.
For a long time I just figured that the black and white in paint was something different than the void of space and white light from the sun, but I've learned in my graphics dabbling that it all has to do with reflection and that in fact the natural phenomena is indeed the same as what is happening to what we see in the world.
Which makes humble gray an almighty judge of color when working as a background during a graphics project.
Nothing will show a color more accurately than a neutral gray background.
Take a yellow and blue logo for instance and resize it in your favorite graphics program.
No matter how small you scale it in that sea of gray, it still stands out and draws your eye.
Artists use gray therefore to isolate their artwork or to define boundaries.
To say that a situation is in a gray area is correct.
It means that there can be no clear discernment.
This is what gray does- it is neither presence nor absence of light, but somewhere in between.
If something is only gray therefore we become lost and disconcerted.
If gray is used a neutral field to contrast colors on though it becomes highly utilitarian.
This is true in natural (e.
g.
elephants) and human situations as well.