Color should be one of your first concern when it comes to website design. Colors creates mood. It is immediate and memorable. It conveys character, expresses intention and emotion. Colors play a vital role in website’s impact. It reflect the message and identity you want to convey to your viewers and can heavily influence the decision-making process. Your site will end up either plain and boring or chaotic and hard to look at. Thus, it must be carefully considered.
Colors affect us psychologically. They can make us excited, happy, irritate, angry or sad. For example, if you owned a restaurant, try to use some orange color for your interior, or a red color table cloth to increase customers appetite. A good color combination that create a relaxed atmosphere and a big appetite are the perfect environment for a restaurant. It’s the same for a website.
Choosing safe color for your Website.
That’s my advice! If you are not an expert in colors, you can refer to the color wheel to achieve safe colors – The Complementary colors or the Monochromatic colors. The reason for choosing safe colors is because the web browsers shares 256 colors, but bear in mind that not all browsers share the same 256 color pallet. They only share 216 colors in common (Mac or PC). If you go outside the 216 color pallet, that means you are using the color that does not exist in the browser.
Lets take a look at some of the color meaning:
Red – the color of passion
Red is the warmest of all colors. It represent passion, energy, desire, excitement, love, strength, courage, leadership and power. It also symbolizes fire, danger, blood, anger and war. Red reflects energy and can increase enthusiasm and interest. It enhances human metabolism, raises blood pressure and increases respiration rate. It has very high visibility, which is perfect for “Click Here” or “Buy Now” button in a website. Use this color to stimulate people to make quick decisions.
Blue – the color of peace
Blue is the coolest color. It represent calm, truth, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, harmony, heaven, sincerity and trust. Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body which slows down human metabolism and produces a calming effect. Blue is often the chosen color by conservative people. It also symbolize coldness, depression and obscenity. According to studies, blue is highly accepted among males. Dark blue is associated with expertise and stability.
Yellow – the color of joy
Yellow is always full of creative and intellectual energy. Yellow symbolizes wisdom, happiness, wealth, hope, cheerful, and intellect. It brings clarity for decision-making and awareness, sharper memory and concentration skills. You can choose yellow to promote children’s product. Men usually perceive yellow as a very ‘childish’ color, so it is not recommended to use it when selling products for men – nobody will buy a yellow business suit or a yellow business bag. Yellow also symbolizes sickness, jealousy, and unstable.
Green – the color of nature
It symbolize the master healer, well being, life, fertility, freshness, ambition, growth, stability and endurance. It is the most restful color for the human eye. Dark green is always associated with money, banking, and the financial world. It is best when you want to promote health products. On the other hand, it can denotes lack of experience and cowardice. Green is a safe color and if you don’t know what color to use, use green.
Orange – the color of energy
Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, success, attraction, encouragement, and determination. It is always associated with sunshine, joy and autumn. Curiosity is a driving characteristic of orange when it comes to explore new things. It is said that people who like orange are usually thoughtful and sincere. It has a high visibility as well, so you can use it to catch attention or highlight an important elements in your website.
Purple – the color of power
It is associated with royalty. Purple symbolizes luxury, ambition, magic and mystery, inspirational and imagination. It is also a color of good judgment. Being the combination of red and blue, the warmest and coolest colors, purple is most favored by children.
White – the color of purity
It means cleanliness, innocent, goddess and safety. It is considered to be the color of perfection. White can represent a successful beginning. In advertising and design, white is associated with coolness and cleanliness. You can use white to suggest simplicity in high-tech products.
Gray – the color of neutrality
Gray is the color of sorrow. It is the symbol for security, maturity, dependability and reliability. Light hues of gray make a good readability and backgrounds. Gray with more silver in it can be a very active color.
Black – the color of stability
Black is the most misunderstood color. Black is a mysterious color associated with fear and the unknown. It is also associated with power, elegance, formality, death and evil. Black is considered to be a very formal, elegant and prestigious color. A black background diminishes readability. It contrast well with bright colors. You can use a black background when designing photography to make the other colors stand out.
Do not take colors for granted. Your choice of color represents you and your products or services. Colors can emphasize the theme of your website. It must be used as a tool to attract viewers. Keep in mind what the different colors symbolize during website design and you will be delighted with the positive output.
Have fun!
