Use of colour on your site

You should be careful of the colours you use on your site as colours convey
emotions and can have different psychological affects on your
visitors.

 Red
is a very dominant colour which creates tension and is often
used to convey love, passion and strength. Red can also have
a negative affect as it can represent danger, aggression and
anger. Red is the first colour that the human eye sees, it will overpower
any other colour on the page so you should use it sparingly.
It is perfect for error messages and details which you would
like visitors drawn to, like ‘Buy Now’ buttons.

 Blue
is a much more tranquil colour. It symbolises freshness, calmness,
trust and loyalty. It can be used to convey confidence and is
probably the safest choice of colour on a site. On the other
hand it can be seen as cold, lonely, conservative and depressing.

 Green
is a refreshing colour signifying nature and the environment.
It also represents envy, greed and jealousy.

 Yellow
is a very rich colour which stands out, it symbolises joy and
happiness. It can also convey dishonesty.

 Orange
symbolises ambition, endurance,
creativity and enthusiam. it is often liked by younger generations
but can also be seen as an attention seeking colour and sometimes
can be seen as cheap.

 Purple
is a mysterious colour often used to symbolize royalty, luxury,
and wisdom. It also represents mourning, arrogance and cruelty.

 Pink
is the most gender specific colour representing feminity and
softness. It can be used effectively on websites directed at
women but can also convey weakness.

 Brown
is most seen in nature but is rarely used in web design and can
be seen as dirty.

 Grey
is a neutral colour which will work well with any other colour.
It enhances and intensifies its surrounding colours so should
be used in conjunction with other brighter colours.

 White
is another neutral colour symbolising purity, simplicity and
clarity. White is the best choice of background colour as text
and images will stand out from it.

 Black
is associated with elegance and class but also fear and death.
It is also often connected to magic and mystery. Black should
rarely be used as a background colour and works best against
a white background.

You should also take into account that colours can have different meanings
in different cultures and religions. For example the colour white
in Western cultures represents peace and purity, yet in Eastern
cultures it is associated with mourning.

Warmer colours such as reds and yellows will stand out and dominate a page
while cooler colours (blues and greens) will recede so make good
background colours.

Posted by admin on Thursday, October 8th, 2009