It’s such a simple thing but designers are not per se website designers – in the same way that SEO people are not website designers. I can’t use photoshop to save myself but its important that all designers understand the basics of a webpage and having a good contrast between text and background is hugely important. 

Why is the contrast between text and background important?

1. Makes text easier to read – remember visitors scan content
2. Your text sells your products to visitors
3. Helps with accessibility
4. SEO guys won’t complain about possibility of hidden text

Why do designers design without contrasting colours?

1. They have nice, high resolution monitors and assume everyone gets their experience
2. They don’t design for users (they make pretty pictures)
3. Lose track of core goal of websites (get visitors to do something) and want to be clever

How To Test for Colour Contrast?

Its pretty easy to go and test the colour contrast you can use online tools or install a toolbar (useful for designers me thinks) – if you want to get really geeky you can test with the W3 guidelines. I generally use the tool provided by http://www.snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html there are more listed at Berea Street.