Clipart Press

Thinking about the perfect color combination can be as perplexing as thinking about how to build a self-sustaining raft with a slab of cement with a metal chain connected to it. What makes selecting color combinations equally scary is that the wrong combination will send your company into bankruptcy and you’ll be the talk of the business world if you mess up (what did he/she expect would happen after pairing those colors together. Amateur!) Okay, none of that may be true, but that is how many people feel when confronted with the task of color coordinating. Choosing hues for your website doesn’t have to be a dreaded task, and with a little planning you will be more successful than you thought possible.

The first step is to write down the objective of the web page for which you need these graphics (and colors.) Is the content formal (business) or informal (fun or personal)? What is the tone of the site? The voice of the content? The message you wish to pass on or the action you want the reader to take? Knowing the purpose of the content will immediately help you eliminate colors from your choices.
Now make a list of colors that best convey your message.

One way to do this is to look at websites, magazines and TV ads. What colors trigger certain emotions in you? Which grab your attention? Even black and white trigger emotions (ask any marketer.) If your website is for fun, you may want to stay away from gray or brown. Fun choices would be hot pink, bright green, or yellow. For formal, business sites you will want to stay away from purple or pink unless those colors are associated with the business.

Choose Your Colors

Another great way to choose a color scheme is to simply find a web template or graphic that you really like and pull a color from it to inspire the rest of the site. Once you choose a color from the graphic, select a light, medium and dark color that complements it. To help you with color ideas, go to ColorSchemer, a web studio with free ideas for color schemes. Print out a color copy of your graphic and hold it up to each of these combinations to see which works best!
Just remember, some basic design tips are that the background is always the lightest color; the largest graphic isn’t the darkest or the lightest color, but somewhere in the middle; and your accent graphics are your darkest or brightest color.

Color Wheel

To further help you choose colors, look to the color wheel which shows us how colors are arranged in the spectrum. By using each color’s position in the wheel we learn which go best together, which complement others, and which are contrasting. Okay, so let’s say you choose red-violet as your first color. Where do you go from there?

Colors next to one another are not complementary. If you were to choose red and violet, the two colors next to red-violet you’d be selecting a bland color scheme. The most complementary colors are listed opposite of each other on the wheel, so the color that will really make red-violet pop on the page is yellow-green, while yellow and green (the two colors on each side of yellow-green) are also complementary to red-violet.

Source: Cornell University

The color wheel is a basic tool that should always be consulted when pairing graphics on a new or existing site. You are making a terrible design error if you think color coordination and schemes do not apply to graphics on a web page. You can avoid this by brainstorming the purpose of your website, listing suitable and unsuitable colors, and then making sure that any new images added complement your existing website by consulting the color wheel.

Have a colorful day!

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