How to Choose the Perfect Colour
Scheme for Your Website:
A Beginner's Guide
See also: Project Planning
Colour is an integral element of web design. While it’s certainly an integral part of the website aesthetic, it goes far beyond just beauty and should enable the audience to be part of the brand or company's plot virtually. For a novice, selecting a good colour scheme may be a challenge. Nonetheless, knowing how to go about it will help you entice clients as it’ll help you create a visually pleasing and cohesive final product.
In this article, we discuss the details of choosing the perfect colour scheme and discovering secrets to make your website visually attractive and accessible.
Is Colour All About Attention?
It’s easy to boil down the use of colour to aesthetics alone. But colour is not only about attracting attention and looking good. It’s also a powerful way of bringing out feelings and altering perceptions. When people visit your website, the colours that they meet could affect their mood, behaviour or even decision-making regarding your brand or company. Understanding how different colours can impact user experience is vital before you set out to create a site that speaks to your audience at a deeper level.
The Concept of Colour Theory
Colour theory is a concept that refers to the way colours work together and how they affect our emotions and perceptions. One of the most interesting parts of colour theory is the psychology of colour. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you interpret and ascribe meaning to different colours.
But why does this matter, you ask? Well, the colours a brand uses will impact how customers and consumers feel about their product, how they interpret their messaging and the decisions they make. So, for brands and companies to set themselves up for success, they need to know the meaning and associations of different colours before they set out to create a new logo design or mock-up website homepage.
Let’s take a look at some different colours’ emotional impact.
Blue
For instance, blue is commonly associated with sadness. It’s also frequently used to represent calmness and responsibility. While light blues are viewed as refreshing and more friendly, dark blues are strong and reliable - hence commonly used in corporate websites and financial institutions.
Red
On the other hand, red is a very hot colour that represents both anger and fire as well as love and passion. Red is often perceived as being more important, urgent, or exciting hence most suitable for e-commerce platforms or promotional campaigns. For example, using bright red for important things like call-to-action buttons makes them stand out. People are more likely to click a red "Buy Now" button than one in a dull colour.
Green
In website design, green is a very stable colour and can have a balancing and harmonising effect. This colour is down to earth and often represents new beginnings, growth, renewal and abundance.
It is also important to think about culture and context with colour. In the West, white often means purity and cleanliness. But in some Eastern cultures, white can mean sadness or mourning. Understanding colour meanings across cultures helps you avoid mix-ups and ensures your website works for a global audience.
Colour accessibility is another key factor. Some colour combinations are hard on the eyes and to see, particularly for people with vision issues. This creates usability problems and excludes certain website visitors. Following accessibility guidelines and using enough colour contrast makes your site inclusive and accessible to everyone.
How Colour Tells the Story of Your Brand
Brand identity involves colour that acts as a visual shortcut signifying the nature, character, and messaging of such an entity. Where a website is concerned, a person needs to know how different colours can work together to reflect the story of the brand and also appeal to the intended audience.
Start by outlining the character traits and desired associations of your brand. Do you want it to appear adventurous and daring or would you rather go for something classy with a touch of sophistication? Each hue has its symbolism; thus, having the ability to evoke emotions or, rather, create certain perceptions within us.
For instance, think about Coca-Cola’s colour scheme, which includes bright red—energy, excitement passion coupled with white that represents purity tradition as well as being a part of this company’s history. This iconic blend not only speaks volumes about what they are all about but also leaves a lasting impression in one’s mind. Likewise, business brands dealing in expensive apparel like Chanel use black plus white colours but may also add gold or silver trimmings to show elegance forever. These subtle shades communicate refinement paired up with luxuriousness, thereby perfectly suiting their image.
Ensuring that this rule is not broken so that clients know always what to expect. Choosing a pattern of colours when developing any online project should be based on your ability to tell stories that are meaningful regarding the different meanings represented by these tones plus how they affect our emotions.
Knowing Your Website’s Goals
Your website's colour scheme should not only be visually appealing but also strategically aligned with its goals and objectives. By leveraging colour effectively, you can enhance usability, guide user behaviour, and ultimately achieve your website's desired outcomes.
To begin, it is key to know the main goals of your website. Are you trying to sell items? Get leads? Tell people about your brand. Give people useful info? Each goal may need a different way to pick and use colours. Say your website's main goal is to sell goods. You will want to use colour smartly to help people buy things. Use bright, eye-catching colours for buttons people click to buy and for reminders to check out.
For example, if your website gives out info or teaches people, making things easy to read is more important when picking colours. Use colour combos with high contrast and clear text so people can easily see and understand the content. To make your website look great and work well, select hues that match its purpose, audience, and goals. Colours that mesh with your aims will attract more people, sales, and good outcomes.
Conclusion
Picking the right colour scheme for a website takes a lot of thought. Oftentimes, it’s worth seeking the services of an agency that specialises in website design in Melbourne that can help you communicate your brand vision and reach your business goals. After all, when you’re busy building your brand and running your business, you won’t have time to do it all yourself.
While you don’t necessarily need to be a colour theory expert, it’s super important you understand the basics. You must weigh up things like colour meanings, brand image, and user experience. Grasping how colours subconsciously affect our thoughts and perceptions of a brand or company can help you use that knowledge to your advantage. It lets you craft a visually striking site using colours that grab customer attention and tell a compelling story about your brand. So, tap into the might of colour and craft a digital gem that wows folks.
About the Author
Caitlyn Bell is an arts student whose experiences in life make her tougher than anyone else. She can lend you expert tips on diverse topics ranging from relationships to fashion, making money, health, and careers.