Cool Colors

First, you have cool colors that you can use when you are designing your website. One of the colors that is considered to be cool is blue. Blue can be an excellent color for use on a website because it makes people feel calm. It also brings about feelings of trust and intelligence. For this reason, many health and financial sites use this color. Another cool color is green. This color can stand for wealth and money. However, it is also associated with green and jealousy, something you need to consider. Purple is also a cool color that is known to stand for being creative.

Warm Colors

There are several warm colors that you can use on your web design as well. However, it’s important to know more about these colors and what they mean and the emotions that they evoke before you use them. Yellow is a warm color that can stand for happiness and warmth. Orange is another warm color that can stimulate appetite and it is often associated with Halloween and Fall. Pink is a warm color that is associated with romance and innocence. Last, you have red, which really draws the attention of the visitor. It can raise blood pressure and may also stand for passion and anger.

Neutral Colors

A variety of different neutral colors are available to use when designing your website too. White is a neutral color, standing for cleanliness and purity. Black is also considered to be a neutral color. It is associated with elegance, power, and sophistication. Grays are very conservative and they also exude feelings of reliability too.

Information on Color Schemes

When you are planning to design colors for your website, you also need to learn about color schemes and how to use them. One type of color scheme is a single color scheme, which makes use of the same color but in several different shades of that color. Contrasting color schemes are another option that you can use for your website. With this type of a scheme, dominant colors help you design an effect that really grabs the eyes. Complementary color schemes are another option where at least two complimentary colors are used in the scheme and this makes an very appealing look for those who visit your website.

“Color it perfect” when it comes to arriving at the best combination that will be vital for any website design when considering the elements of the page layout. Success can be absolutely dependent upon choosing correct color combinations as well as using a really poor one can lead to nowhere but miserable failure. How many times have you landed upon a particular site and seen the colors presented to you and could only say “Yuck?”

Well, unless you want a lot of people asking that old proverbially clichéd question, “What was he thinking?” you better be learning how to pick and choose color combinations correctly or find some help.

Color is such a psychological component. Therefore, it is one of those activities that must be meticulously executed in order to arrive at the right color combination that will match the theme of your website. Some of the best places to start include matching website colors is with your business logo colors. Or, employ a contrast of color combinations so your logo stands out, which will help strengthen your brand recognition. You also must understand that a particular color can change the mood and often this is done drastically when combined with other colors.

People relate to colors through experiencing mental sensations and brain reactions. Although when you view a particular color, for example blue, you may think to yourself that it’s blue, but your senses are displaying something totally different than the word “blue.” The actual visualizing of the color blue can have a brain reaction that may even differ from one person to the next. Although there are commonly acceptable sensations that the color blue apparently influences that are practically universal, such as a “cooling” sense, the reactions are far too many to make a specific declaration about how people “feel” blue.

However, the starting point for selecting color combinations does begin with what is universally accepted as what those colors represent as far as the effects upon the senses. Therefore, it is hard to imagine that a designer creating a website for a flamethrower manufacturer will employ use of the color blue. Typically, the human mind translates colors with those animated objects either found naturally or artificially in life. Fire is red, not necessarily blue, although technically a blue flame is hotter than a red flame, but it is the generally accepted popular version that selecting color combinations is based upon.

A basic understanding of color theory is something that all art students and website developers study as subject matter during their training. For the uninitiated, use of a color wheel will show how color is structured in a specific order. This starts with the colors blue, red and yellow which are known as primaries. These are the building blocks of all color. Next to these will be the secondary hues of green, violet and orange. We have a third level that comprises of various matches like blue/green, blue/violet, red/violet, red/orange, orange/yellow, and yellow/green.

Use of the color wheel will show you which ones are opposite each other. This helps to gain a basic fundamental direction of how to combine colors to make a combination. Note that blue is opposite of orange. Red is opposite of green, while red/violet is opposite of yellow/green. When you find colors that are opposites, they are known as complementary.

Additionally, colors are divided based on temperature, which is normally termed as warm or cold. Colors at the bottom right of the wheel are all based on blue and are cold colors, whereas the colors based on red are called warm colors. So, fundamentally, if a web designer is looking to evoke a cooler temperature, choosing a blue derivative color would be the proper way to go. On the other hand, if the same designer s looking to evoke a warmer feeling, he or she would use a red derivative color.

As you can see, color is suitable for a particular purpose, but sometimes choosing the right color combination that will instantly fit a particular purpose may be a difficult challenge, specifically if you’re starting from scratch and have no reference point such as a company logo. Obviously, if the colors contained within the company logo are cool, then this needs to be taken into consideration when you choose other colors on the webpage to associate with it. The same is true for the opposite, using the warm colors derived from red.

Just as the fashion industry has seasons with different variations, interior paint color choices vary and moments of time can be instantly remembered by the decade they came from, the colors that drive all of these have a huge impact.  When choosing how to design graphics for any specific site, choosing a color combination is one of the most important aspects.  You need complimentary, contrasting and highlight colors, nothing about the web is black and white, it never was.

Choosing colors that compliment and work within the niche or industry of the website is a start, but where do you go from there?  Where can you draw inspiration on what’s happening now in terms of color patterns and what won’t look dated a year from now?

The Internet of coarse!  Using sites like Adobe’s Kuler http://kuler.adobe.com Colour Lovers http://www.colourlovers.com/ for current trends of color combinations, all with cute little names that will make you melt on the inside.  You may have an idea of a hue or shade you want to take the direction of your design work in, searching how others are using that as a key or accessory color will help you build a pallet that will give you a full set of ideas to work from.

How important is the color combination you use in your graphic design?  Very!  Colors and combination of colors can show warm and cool, happy and sad and to some extent, push viewers towards specific SEO goals.  Following current trends, watching for break-out stars and utilizing the tools to create powerful, working pallets of colors will take your graphic design to the next level.

Contact Amherst Web Design for more information.