Karra Maxim is a former professional web designer who has offered model agency web design in the past.
Web design involves numerous skilled disciplines from type to layout & colour. Colour is especially important because it provides the first impression to the user. The correct colours can create a good user experience, whereas inappropriate colours can have a negative impact.
To make a good website, the web designer needs to know how colours affect people. Subconsciously, people react to colours and associate them with different feelings and emotions.
Colours do not only bring up emotions and feelings that could influence how a site is received but they can also be cleverly used to direct users to specific bits of your web site.
Each colour imaginable can be used on the web now, so picking the correct colours can be a huge task. Here’s a swift summary of how some colours can evoke certain reactions.
Red is associated with strength, fire, blood & lust. If it is used sparingly on a light background, it can be used to make the most of & highlight certain points.
Blue is the most frequently used colour for websites & it can denote confidence, loyalty & royalty. The darker shades of blue often mean strength whilst the lighter end can be used to express fantasy & dream. Blue is a very popular corporate colour, so it is often used on business websites.
The colour green can be used to represent feelings of durability, safety & harmony. It is also a striking colour to use to emphasise calm & relaxation.
Standing for joy, happiness, warning and energy, yellow has a similar effect to red, although it's not as popular. It can be used to emphasise areas of a site. However, if it's used too much, it can be overpowering.
Brown can express honesty and trust in a design. It can be linked to ageing, warmth & comfort. Orange is associated with enthusiasm, creativity & stimulation. It is used in designing for the web to portray friendliness.
Purple's darker shades can be truly deep & luscious. It is associated with royalty, spirituality, arrogance & luxury. The lighter end of the purple spectrum can stand for romance & delicacy. However, it's a colour that is not used very often on sites.
In conclusion, the role of colour in web design isn't just to make the website look nice, it can provoke feelings and emotions in the web user. Choosing colours that agitate the site user can have detrimental effects on your web site, whereas cleverly picking the correct colours may mean that the web site lives up to the user's expectations. If your site meets these expectations, there is more chance that your user will return to your website again and again.
To make a good website, the web designer needs to know how colours affect people. Subconsciously, people react to colours and associate them with different feelings and emotions.
Colours do not only bring up emotions and feelings that could influence how a site is received but they can also be cleverly used to direct users to specific bits of your web site.
Each colour imaginable can be used on the web now, so picking the correct colours can be a huge task. Here’s a swift summary of how some colours can evoke certain reactions.
Red is associated with strength, fire, blood & lust. If it is used sparingly on a light background, it can be used to make the most of & highlight certain points.
Blue is the most frequently used colour for websites & it can denote confidence, loyalty & royalty. The darker shades of blue often mean strength whilst the lighter end can be used to express fantasy & dream. Blue is a very popular corporate colour, so it is often used on business websites.
The colour green can be used to represent feelings of durability, safety & harmony. It is also a striking colour to use to emphasise calm & relaxation.
Standing for joy, happiness, warning and energy, yellow has a similar effect to red, although it's not as popular. It can be used to emphasise areas of a site. However, if it's used too much, it can be overpowering.
Brown can express honesty and trust in a design. It can be linked to ageing, warmth & comfort. Orange is associated with enthusiasm, creativity & stimulation. It is used in designing for the web to portray friendliness.
Purple's darker shades can be truly deep & luscious. It is associated with royalty, spirituality, arrogance & luxury. The lighter end of the purple spectrum can stand for romance & delicacy. However, it's a colour that is not used very often on sites.
In conclusion, the role of colour in web design isn't just to make the website look nice, it can provoke feelings and emotions in the web user. Choosing colours that agitate the site user can have detrimental effects on your web site, whereas cleverly picking the correct colours may mean that the web site lives up to the user's expectations. If your site meets these expectations, there is more chance that your user will return to your website again and again.
- Related Videos
- Related Articles
- Ask / Related Q&A
- The Psychology of Colour: What Impact Can it Have on Your Site?
- Learn More About Designing Web-sites and the Psychology of Colour
- The Psychology of Colour in Web Design
- Discover More About Designing Effective Websites Using Colour Psychology
- Using Colours in Designing for the World Wide Web
- Use Grey in Your Web Colour Scheme to Represent Innovation and the Future
- Opting for Colours in Designing Web Sites
- Hot Tips on Creating a Great Colour Scheme for Your Website
Corporate Business Promotion, Corporate Marketing Technology
By: Jigney Bhachech | 03/07/2009Offer a wide range of professional seo services like corporate business promotion, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, pay per click advertising, seo management, seo maintenance and seo consulting services to launch a successful business website promotion campaign.
The Uses of Color Arts - Photoshop Brush Tools
By: Manish Shrivastava | 03/07/2009Over the past several years, a strong trend towards using various Photoshop Tools is seen in website design and development. Increasingly, clients ask for the ability of their web sites to reach maximum potential customers as possible.
Reasons to Have a Website Redesign
By: Steve Irron | 03/07/2009Website redesigning could be a simple task to perform. Though, it can also be a difficult task. There are certain numbers of things which you can do in order to make your website more powerful than before.
Should You Outsource Pay-Per-Click? - Here's “Seven” Good Reasons Why!
By: Chriss Tyrrell | 03/07/2009One huge difference between pay-per-click agencies and yourself, is that these agencies tend to share and maintain a much closer business relationship with search engine managers, which allows them to do things like resolve issues and contention with these account managers and also upload data much more faster and efficiently. The end result is that their higher level of prioritized service translates directly to a more positive bottom line for these agencies and those who seek out their service
Search Engine Optimisation For Business Success
By: Chriss Tyrrell | 03/07/2009Its a fact that the Internet has become a far more competitive place to do business. So the old adage, “build a better mouse trap and they will buy it” just doesn't apply any more. Now it seems its “build a better mouse trap, develop an effective SEO campaign and then they will know where to come and buy it”.
Acanthus Infotech is a Web design company and website development services firm based in Chennai India
By: Muthusamy.S | 03/07/2009Acanthus Infotech is a Website Design and Website Development Services firm based in Chennai.We are committed to provide Creative, Innovative, Quick and Quality Website Design Solutions, Web Development, Web Development Services, E-Commerce Web Applications, Website Maintenance etc.
How to Choose An Ideal PDF Converter?
By: deepak | 03/07/2009PDF is one of the most popular file formats today; PDF files have features that are not offered by other file formats like security, compact size, accessibility, usage restrictions, and a lot more. This has led to the increase in converting files in various formats like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. to PDF
Official Apple Developer- the new web design status symbol
By: Harry Smith | 03/07/2009An exploration into the power the Apple brand name is lending web production companies across the world.
Blue Represents Strength and Confidence
By: Karra Maxim | 10/10/2008 | Web DesignBlue is most commonly associated with with business web sites because its a strong colour that's linked to confidence, coldness, depression, water and peace.
Use Ebony as a Nice Complimentary Colour
By: Karra Maxim | 10/10/2008 | Web DesignEbony is a very popular colour for backgrounds as it shows off other colours really well. its associated with feeling of sexiness, style, elegance and power.
Use the Colour Black to Signify Death & Evil
By: Karra Maxim | 10/10/2008 | Web DesignYellow conjures up thoughts of summer, joy & optimism. it's a colour that could be overwhelming & if used in conjunction with black, it creates a feeling of warning.
Stop Over the Apollo Theatre, a Snazzy Theatre in Manchester
By: Karra Maxim | 10/10/2008 | TravelThese include the museum of science & industry, which tells the story of Manchester's rich industrial past. The museum holds touring exhibitions too, and recently held the renowned bodyworlds 4 exhibit. The city's best art galleries include the richard
Learn More About Web Design and the Psychology of Colour
By: Karra Maxim | 10/10/2008 | Web DesignFinding out how colour works is really important to all website designers if they want to produce a successful website. This is because different colours affect people in distinct ways, and can influence moods & emotions. because of this your colour cho
Use Green for Environment Website Design
By: Karra Maxim | 10/09/2008 | Web DesignGreen is a great colour to use to make a relaxed & calm website, its linked to mother earth, envy, money & the organic.
Use Purple for Girly Themed Websites
By: Karra Maxim | 10/09/2008 | Web DesignPurple isn't a really popular colour in designing for the internet, because it is perceived as quite girly & can give the impression of arrogance, wealth, luxury & indulgence.