Vim colorize edit mode

Question

I'm trying to tailor vim to my needs and I would like vim to visually indicate when it is in some kind of edit mode (insert/replace) by, for example, coloring the background red. Is there any way to achieve this?

Answer 1

The vim-powerline plugin provides a nicely colored indicator of the current mode in the statusline:

In addition to other useful indicators, like the current git branch.