Color is a powerful web design tool, and it should be harnessed wisely or your website may lose potential customers. Color can talk to your readers before your content has a chance to speak. What is it saying?
- Find the meaning. Colors hold certain meanings and emotions. Look at how your culture, state, community, etc. uses and thinks of color. Use this for your own means and incorporate them through your color palette.
- Use color intentionally. At first glance your webpage should convey your brand clearly and not create confusion as if you landed on your page by accident. Well-known brands use color very well, and people remember color combinations. Consciously applying color through all of your marketing campaigns can achieve similar results.
- Be different. It is tough to be successful in a competitive marketplace. Color can be an effective mode of creative differentiation — think purple window cleaner in a sea of blue products.
- Functionality reigns supreme. Above all, color should be functional, plain and simple. It is an important visual cue for visitors — it signifies headers and sub-headers, navigation bars, links, and more — so use it clearly. Also, be ADA compliant. Keep a high contrast between the background and foreground, limit the overlapping of red and green colors for colorblind individuals, and keep readability high.
So whenever making a web site, the goal is to create a dynamic, functional, and brand-appropriate design. What sites do you think rock at color — or should just stick to black and white?