Color can be a powerful tool for a web designer. An effective website should communicate in more ways than just with words and images. Its entire design language should influence the viewer in ways that they aren’t even consciously aware of.
Colors can impact us in ways that we usually don’t realize. Smart use of color on a website can influence mood, comfort level, and purchasing behavior. Poor use of color can drive potential clients away. How do you decide which colors to use? Why do you use them?
Your Favorite Color
What is your favorite color? If you are a woman, odds are that it is blue, purple, or green. If you are a man, it is probably blue, green, or black. These are the colors that, on average, men and women respond to best.
Similarly, there are colors that the average man or woman hates. Women don’t like orange, brown, and gray. Men don’t like they are brown, orange, and purple. If you are designing a webpage, it is important to keep these colors in mind. Utilizing some of the ‘disliked’ colors must be considered carefully. And it’s probably best to avoid them as a primary color choice.
What Does a Color Communicate?
Different colors communicate different things. When you think of the environment, what is the first color that comes to mind? Odds are, it’s green. If you are designing a website with an environmental focus, green would be an obvious choice, as it contributes to your message without using a single word.
Here are some of the unspoken messages popular colors communicate:
Blue – Trust, soothing, calm
Green – Environment, money, wealth
Yellow – Warnings, happiness, friendliness
Orange – Haste, urgency, active
Black – Luxury, cool, elegant
Red – Emergency, excitement, love
Gray – Neutrality, calmness, competency
The Importance of White
Technically, white isn’t a color. It’s the absence of color, but it still had a huge psychological impact on customers. It convey a sense of purity, honesty, and transparency and its use also makes a webpage far more inviting. The contrast of white background with dark text makes it easy to read copy.
How to Pick Your Website’s Colors
When designing a website, you should first a dominant color. This will probably be the dominant color of your logo and brand. This choice helps to reinforce your logo in people’s minds.
You should pick complimentary colors for your website, no matter what message you are trying to get across. Clashing colors can make it unpleasant to look at a website, and customers will be instantly turned off and look elsewhere.
From there, you want to choose some other, complimentary colors. There are many tools out there that can help you find the perfect color palette for your website. Adobe’s Color Wheel is a great color selection tool that can help you choose combinations that work together naturally.
If you are using professional help, a designer can give you advise and draft designs with different combinations. That way you can consider different options and choose the one that you feel best fits your company image.
The Background
No matter what colors you choose for the elements of your website, there is always going to be a lot of background of the site in view. That is why choosing a background color is so important. You might want a color that will help the content stand out and won’t draw attention from the viewer. White and gray are usually excellent choices, as these are considered neutral and won’t draw the eye.
On the other hand, designing a custom background can actually show off a level of polish that many websites lack. If your website is promoting any kind of graphic design, having a compelling background element could be a necessary selling point.
If you really want to reinforce your primary brand color, a lighter shade of it could make for an excellent background choice. As long as it is pale and allows the main content to shine, it can be a nice way to underline what your company is all about.
The Call to Action
A compelling CTA is what the story of your website is leading to. Think of it as the climax of the story. To really make it stand out, you might want to use a completely different color that isn’t part of your website’s color scheme.
In some cases, colors like orange and yellow can be jarring. But with a professional design, it can look great and really drive home the urgency of your call to action – without using a single word. The color green can stands out. It could be the perfect color to highlight your Call To Action.
The Final Product
Remember, your webpage is telling your story, so you should be the one directing it. A talented web designer has the knowledge of color theory, design, and SEO to create you a great looking, professional website. And you can work with them to create the look you want.
A professional designer will work with you on the colours you want for website, so that you can get the look and the results you need. Contact The Story Web Design & Marketing for an initial website consultation today.
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