Thursday, May 14, 2009

Colors: How to Decide What’s Right for You

Your website’s visual appearance is very important to you. If you already have a website, I’m sure you toiled over the theme and navigation and font and colors of the whole design. Choosing colors is sometimes not the easiest task so here’s a few helpful tips for those of you choosing the colors of your website.

The first thing you should do is exploit your resources. There are thousands and thousands of web pages designed solely to help you decide which colors are right for you. There are color scheme generators that allow you to enter in your favorite color and it will spit out three or more other colors to go along with that one. Also, there are countless example websites using the very colors that you are trying out. Just have a few google searches and see what you come up with.

Studies have shown over and over that color affects the human emotions. This is very important when it comes to designing your website. First of all, it is common sense (but often ignored) that your content should contrast a great deal with your background. This doesn’t always mean white text on a black background but it certainly means that you shouldn’t use two colors from the same family. Also, it is important to keep in mind that some people are color blind. It may seem like a small minority but it is very easy pick colors that work with everyone from the start. But back to emotion, colors can easily influence visitors to your website to feel different moods. There are fields of psychology dedicated to just this so don’t feel bad if you don’t have it all figured out. Here’s a snippet from an article called “Color Psychology in Online Marketing” by Al Martinovic

• RED is associated with love, passion, danger, warning, excitement, food, impulse, action, adventure.

• BLUE is associated with trustworthiness, success, seriousness, calmness, power, professionalism.

• GREEN is associated with money, nature, animals, health, healing, life, harmony.

• ORANGE is associated with comfort, creativity, celebration, fun, youth, affordability.

• PURPLE is associated with royalty, justice, ambiguity, uncertainty, luxury, fantasy, dreams.

• WHITE is associated with innocence, purity, cleanliness, simplicity.

• YELLOW is associated with curiosity, playfulness, cheerfulness, amusement.

• PINK is associated with softness, sweetness, innocence, youthfulness, tenderness.

• BROWN is associated with earth, nature, tribal, primitive, simplicity.

• GREY is associated with neutrality, indifference, reserved.

• BLACK is associated with seriousness, darkness, mystery, secrecy.

As with any part of your web design, you could take your colors as far as you want. The most important thing to know As with any part of your web design, you could take your colors as far as you want. The most important thing to know is that they have to be functional and they should reflect what your business is trying to achieve. So take your time, ask your co-workers or collaborate with others and pick the right colors that work for you. CODANK has experience is designing custom websites that fit your business design. Call today for a free quote!

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