One of the first steps you should think about when designing your Website is 'what colors will I use?' Sometimes that decision is made for you in advance, as when your assignment is to put together a corporate site that already has pre-determined company colors that must be used. If not, and the field of color choice is wide open, you need to think long and hard about the psychological effects of different colors and the mood they create.
Let's say the desired effect you're looking for is to create a restful, calm site for a nursing home. You probably won't want to choose an excitable color like red. How many colors should you use? Try to limit your site to two or three at the most. Any more than that will tend to create confusion and look unprofessional.
Since colors can trigger reactions in people, you want the ones associated with your website to be favorable. You want your visitors to fill out that form, purchase that product, sign up for your newsletter. Good color choices can help move them along to the desired response.
Understanding a little about color theory will go a long way in helping you make the most out of your color selections. Below are some basic colors and meanings.
Brown - Comfortable and Enduring
Red - Excitement, energy, passion
Purple - Associated with royalty/mystery
Black - Elegance and sophistication
Yellow - Betrayal- Fear
White - Innocence and Purity
Blue - Reliability and Trust
Are you starting to get an idea of why using the right colors can make or break a site? For example, a site that sells baby merchandise would want to stick with pastel soft colors, not outrageous purple or black.
To learn more about color theory check out these sources:
Choosing the Right Colors for Your Website
http://www.avangate.com/articles/color-web-site_59.htm
Do Colors Influence Website Visitors?
http://www.graphic-design.com/Web/web_color.html
Choosing the Right Colors for Your Website
http://www.outsourcingtemps.com/articles/choosing-the-right-colors-for-your-website
Color is a very powerful aspect of Web design. Take advantage of it and you'll have a successful site that evokes just the right mood and gets the response you're looking for.
Great advice. Sometimes clients come to me with websites that don't "match" what they offer. Like light pink for a coaching site. And sometimes it's really difficult to pull them away from whatever they've settled on!
ReplyDeleteI like a nice brick red, myself - combo of the earthy brown and the passionate red. Sometimes, though, you really get tired of looking at the same old website, and I think customers do, too.