Choosing the right color scheme for you new website is a lot harder than choosing clothes that match. The difference between matching colors for clothing and your color scheme for your website is that the website will be wearing the same colors for a long time.
Many people make the mistake of using the wrong color schemes that don’t match. You may think that black and yellow or red and yellow go well, but not in all cases, maybe in clothing, but not for most web designs.
It’s important that you select the correct color scheme for your design. When selecting a color scheme measure it by percentage. What I mean by percentage is what color will be most dominate to least dominate in your design.
Let’s break it down
Website Background = 50%
Header and Footer = 25%
Page Background and Side Bars = 25%
The most common color here is going to be the website background. This color makes up a majority of the website.
An example of a color scheme
All the colors in the example flow well together and are in the same family. I like these colors for a gaming site.
There’s a really cool online tool called ‘Color Scheme Designer‘. This tool helps take all the guess work out of selecting the correct color scheme for your new design.
Color Scheme Designer provides up to 6 different models to choose from, but I would stay with the mono model. What I like most is that they provide a Light and Dark example of your color scheme in an actual webpage. This gives the user an idea of what the color scheme would look like on an actual website.
Visit Color Scheme Designer to see for yourself!
In my experience, a lot of designers don’t bother to pick out a colour scheme; and if the customer is not paying for that I don’t blame them. It is one of those things that clients seem to think is trivial and thus should be free, but IMO its something that has to be considered in any serious design.
.-= David´s last blog ..Writing for Search Engines and People =-.
David,
Then color scheme is vital, and if a web design company can’t incorporate than it’s obvious they are not paying attention to detail.
I am of the opinion that the background should almost always be white. In very rare circumstances is there justification for some other color, but any other color reduces readability.
.-= David Leonhardt´s last blog ..Want a link on a throw-away domain? =-.
David,
I think a background should match the color scheme regardless of what color it is.
Some website backgrounds are incredibly beautiful. I have noted that too much of what I call “busyness” does take away from what is being portrayed. This is especially true in utilizing font colors with background colors. You have to be able to read.
.-= Neva Flores´s last blog ..Transform Negativity – August 27, 2009 =-.
Color scheme is indeed essential in web designs. It portrays the creativity and attitude of a particular site, same as the interior design of a house. Color Scheme Designer can help a great deal, I’ve tried this application and enjoyed it! Good info for those who’re in the designing field.
@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker
.-= Ching Ya´s last blog ..How Seriously Do You Take Blog Comments? =-.
Ching,
I love the attitude part. I didn’t think about that and it makes sense.
Nice article Frank,
Color schemes can play a major role for any website design.
It can be too easy to pick bad color matches and put visitors off. In the majority of cases it helps to portray the quality of the site itself, and some are created so badly that they are almost unreadable, which will turn people away very quickly.
I might play with this but I think I will probably leave my colors as they are :)
Colin,
Thank you! Color schemes are so important that many web developers don’t put enough time into selecting the right scheme.
wow !! This is super Useful !! Really excellent ideas .
.-= Dog rescue´s last blog ..Best pets at low prices =-.
Glad you enjoyed the article.
choosing color themes is quite dificult and should only be done by experienced designers in my opinion. In case of doubth Black and white is still doable :-D
cheers,
Thomas
.-= Thomas Web PM´s last blog ..The 15 Worst User Experience Design Mistakes Ever =-.
Thomas,
If you have a color scheme template like the one I posted here, why pay some company? UX folks are a dime a dozen these days, it seems to be a popular profession.