Nearly every error mes­sage on the web shows up in the color red. Something about red just screams “warn­ing! alert! fire!” So what’s a web designer to do when red is already promi­nent in the design?

Virgin America chose pur­ple. Since Virgin’s col­ors are red and white, a red error mes­sage would have been invis­i­ble. But this purple-pink gra­di­ent stands out well enough and, unlike red, it doesn’t aggra­vate the reader. If any­thing, it has a calm­ing effect, mir­ror­ing the peace­ful vio­let inte­ri­ors of Virgin’s planes.