Discover Why Color Psychology Plays an Important Role in Web Design
Not sure what colors are best to use for your website? Psychology may hold the answer! Believe it or not, web design and color psychology go hand in hand when you want to create a website that grabs your visitor’s attention and leads them to take action.
To design an effective and professional-looking website, your colors need to compliment one another, and also be comfortable and easy to read. But they should also be chosen with their psychological effects in mind. Colors trigger emotional responses in people, far more than words do. They send a definite, almost immediate non-verbal message about your brand, and have a huge subconscious impact on whether or not visitors to your website will choose to buy from you.
Colors are generally divided into three ‘temperatures’. Warm colors, such as reds, oranges and yellows, come across as exciting and bold. Unless your brand message is full of energy and power, warm colors should not be the main color palette for your website. Cool colors, like blues, greens, magentas and violets, are relaxing, soothing and tend to create a calm feeling. These colors can be used throughout your website. Neutral tones, like blacks, whites and greys, compliment either warm or cool colors and are perfect to use as backgrounds.
The best way to choose a color palette for your website is to think of the emotion you want your site visitors to feel when they hit your home page. What impression do you want them to have of your brand? What actions do you want them to take? The following web design and color psychology tip list will help you narrow down your choices:
Neutral Colors
White: clean, refreshing, pure, contemporary
Black: elegance, power, sophisticated, classic
Grey: authority, tradition, conservative, practical
Brown: effective, rich, helpful, natural
Warm Colors
Red: passion, strength, aggressive, excitement
Orange: pleasure, vibrant, playful, cheerful
Yellow: happy, intellectual, warm, jealous
Cool Colors
Blue: trust, security, fiscal responsibility, reliability
Green: wealth, status, natural, growth
Purple: upscale, artistic, spiritual, luxury
For your color palette to work, it must be balanced and harmonious. If you have too many colors, it looks confusing and messy…and too few looks boring. Choose 2 or 3 main colors for your website, and then accent them with different shades of those colors. Keep in mind that, overall, the best color scheme for reading online is black text on a white background.
When you put web design and color psychology to work together, you have a much better chance of creating a website that not only supports your brand and impresses your visitors, but encourages them to take action.
Bird and Co Creative is a graphic design company providing effective marketing solutions for small businesses.
Author: Ruth Williams
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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