Before you can consider the finer points of your design, you need to make the big decisions. Few decisions are more important than the color scheme your website is going to use.

Pay Attention To Contrast

You need to pick colors that provide enough contrast to make your text stand out in order to promote readability. Stay away from using a light colored font on a light color background as it would be very difficult to read. Remember your emphasis is on getting your message read. An unread message is a useless message.

Not Too Many Colors

You should choose 3 or 4 colors for your site, and use only those colors (or shades of those colors). Decide ahead of time which colors you’re going to use, and stick to it.

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are opposite each other on a color wheel. The 3 most common sets are:
* red and green
* blue and orange
* yellow and purple.

These colors work surprisingly well together.

Complementary colors also are a good way to pick colors that will be easily readable against a certain background: look for the exact opposite color to maximise readability.

Analog Colors

Another approach to try is to pick colors that are similar to your main color, meaning that they’re near to it on the color wheel. Red, for example, goes well with its analog colors, orange and yellow. If overdone, this can make your site look too bright, but in moderation the results can look good. It’s no coincidence that these combinations often occur in nature.

Chromatic Colors

A personal favorite, chromatic colors use different shades and hues of 1 color for your entire design — nothing else except black and white. For example, you might use light blue, bright blue and dark blue together. This creates a sleek and professional look.

Take Colors From Nature

For inspiration for a color scheme, go for a walk outside. Take a look at plants, landscapes, and animals. Nature knows how to use colors — learn from it.

Color Blindness

Try to make sure that your design uses color to make itself aesthetically pleasing, but doesn’t rely on the color scheme for anything essential. Statistics show that perhaps 10% of the web users are at least partially color blind, so you need to consider these people when you design your site. Make sure they can at least read your text.

To see things the way a color blind user would, visit vischeck.com.

Visit Web Design DIY to learn more. Ron King is a full-time researcher, writer, and web developer, visit his website at Website

Copyright 2005 Ron King. This article may be reprinted if the resource box is left intact and the links live.

Source: High Quality Article Database – 365Articles.com

 How do you attract people and get their attention?
Look around you. What do you see? Colors, of course. Colors are what hold people's attention. It attracts them to take a second look and see more clearly. This is the same essence why black and white print jobs are slowly disappearing. What is taking their place are color printers. The shift to color printing is obviously because of the many advantages that it gives. You probably have heard about the benefits. ....

 The very basics of design
Design is a very subjective thing, therefore, if you ask me how to come up with a first class design for your marketing collateral or publishing mediums, it would be very unfair for me or anyone else to tell you what is a good design and what is a bad design....... But there are certain elements and principles that we should look for in a design to determine whether the design and layout of the material will be able to carry the message across effectively to the readers and....

 Make Your Site’s Navigation Options Highly Visible
Effective navigation stands out. It's clear, obvious, and highly visible. You'll need to have a clear section of the page designated for navigation--one that a visitor will immediately recognize as the navigation area when he arrives at the site. Navigation should not necessarily be the prime focus, but it must be highly visible. On many sites, the main navigation is overly subdued. It sort of "lurks" on the page, but it's not the kind of thing that really gets to a visitor's consciousness. It gets drowned out because there is too much color....

 Basic Color Theory Scrapbooking Ideas
Looking for a simple, versatile scrapbooking idea that can make your pages interesting and great looking?  Try using the color wheel that you learned about in grade school to design well-coordinated eye-pleasing pages that really shine.  The simple color theories that you learned in grade school can serve you very well in scrapbooking today, and after reviewing the basics you'll be ready to create an unlimited number of great looking pages. Remember the color wheel?  Colors arranged in a circle, similar to a rainbow, and all of the colors....

 A good logo vs. a FABULOUS logo
If you had a choice, which one would you choose, a good logo or a fabulous logo? Think about it for a second here, although I know the answer is crystal clear. Because many of us settle for a good logo created by a credible logo designer just because he or she is a credible logo designer who charges low prices. For example, I had a client who paid $500 for a normal-looking logo..... If you had a choice, which one would you choose, a good logo or a....

 Business Website Building Do’s and Don’ts
When it comes to building your own website for business, there are many things to consider when you build your home page to make it look professional, fast loading and easy to navigate. There are many ways and tools to make your site look good, entertaining and fun to watch, but that doesn't mean you should use them all. First, using a lot of web graphics, flash, banners and pictures on your home page may make it look fancy or cool; but it will slow down the loading time....

 Business Website Building Do’s and Don’ts
When it comes to building your own website for business, there are many things to consider when you build your home page to make it look professional, fast loading and easy to navigate. There are many ways and tools to make your site look good, entertaining and fun to watch, but that doesn't mean you should use them all. First, using a lot of web graphics, flash, banners and pictures on your home page may make it look fancy or cool; but it will slow down the loading time....

 Web Design – The Basics
For your website to be successful, it has to contain the proper web design. This isn't too hard if you've been designing websites for years and have had the time and experience to perfect your technique, but for everyone else, web design can seem somewhat daunting. Don't worry, though, it doesn't have to be. Just remember that using common sense, and applying your own taste are the best things that you can do for your web design strategy. For your website to be successful, it has to contain the....

 Surefire Google Adsense Earnings Tips
Make the most of your website revenue by creatively utilizing Google adsense ads. Placing Google adsense ads on your website hasto be one of the easiest ways to generate income withyour site.  Signup is free and all you have to do is put the ads on your site. But easy does not always mean simple. Google makes it easy to sign up, generate an ad and put it on your site, however, it's not always so simple designing your site for interest, finding high paying keywords and placing your....

 The Three Principles of Image Optimization
Optimizing a page for quick load times can be broken down into 3 broad categories: the basic coding of the page, scripts that are used on the page, and images. Of these three, images that are too large can have the most significant impact on load times and therefore have the greatest potential for improved page loading times if properly optimized. Are you losing visitors to your web site due to slow page load times? Is your site being penalized because the images on your site are too large?....

 Search Engine Optimization: Site Structure and Popularity
Search Engine Optimization: Site Structure and Popularity by: Milena Sotirova In the Global Internet era the industry presence is undoubtedly related to the company online presence. Where is the scope of the online presence limitations and does it refer only to the search engine optimization aspect or it broadens into many related components. Following the user experience line, it is easy to describe what the most important levels of access Internet popularity are and how it can be achieved. Site organization Well, the site organization is always the first after choosing a domain name that comes up as a decision in the design process.....

 This blog now has defined niche specific content
After reading a post submitted to my blog... here by Greg Hall, I decided to take his advice and change the focus of my Pro Blog Tips website to blogs and blogging. Have removed over 300 articles that related to other subjects that were not really blog related. Must admit that taking the plung and removing so many posts was a bit scary as I'm sure that for at least the next few months traffic to Pro Blog Tips will be effected. Not long ago I took the same steps with a number of dating blogs. Found that traffic dropped for about....

 The pillars behind an accessible creative business web site design
The web site should look awesome in the sense that its design must be user friendly and visually appealing. Usability, accessibility and some basic browser design guidelines are there behind any new web site to look afresh. User friendliness, good look & feel and fast & easy communications are some of the features of any successful and cheap website design to target the prospects.   Only pretty images would not satisfy their quests. A site that is not visually appealing can drive a user away before he completes his task. Certain other things are also necessary here to....

 Web Site Templates – Are Special Effects or Flash Necessary?
But what impact, if any, does this kind of special effect have on the value of the user experience or making any sales? You see a lot of new web site templates that have all sorts of special effects like noise, moving images, and morphing graphics. The gee whiz or cool factor is used to sell the web site design template and entice the buyer. But what impact, if any, does this kind of special effect have on the value of the user experience or making sales? I know that I'm not very attracted to noisy web sites. If fact if your....

 5 Website Design Tips to Make Your Site More Attractive
The question that I most frequently hear from people is "How can I attract thousands of visitors to my site each month?" Well, driving high traffic to your site is important, but what's even more important, is designing a website that makes them stay. After all, what's the use of spending all your time and money on creating a unique product that many people want, building a 100-page site, winning top rankings on search engines, and spending $5,000 in advertising if visitors don't stay once they arrive? In this article,....

Trackback URL for this post:
http://www.problogtips.com/how-to-pick-your-website-colors/679/trackback/

Posted by Jaron in the catagory of... General Interest

No Trackbacks »