Your website’s color theme is as important as its layout or content structure. It is the first thing that strikes your visitors when they visit your home page and leaves an impression on a sub-conscious level. It also conveys to your audience the focus of your website at a single glance. From a brand development perspective, it is important to realize that your company or brand will come to be associated with your website’s color theme, so whatever your website’s color, make sure it is something you’ll want to stick with in the future.
Different Strokes for Different Folks
So what exactly should be your website’s color theme? There is no definitive answer to this question. What works well for someone else may not work for you and, thinking realistically, effective color application in websites for the purpose of branding is an extremely difficult task because of a legion of parameters involved such as gender, age and income of your target demographic to name a few. It is very likely that if asked to define your target audience, you’ll find yourself dealing with a target audience with very diverse ethnographic and geographic attributes.
Does Blue Work for You?
However, certain color groups do evoke specific semiotic responses, e.g. the blue color (code: 3B5998) has come to be associated with Facebook and social media in extension. The color white (dominant color on all Google products) represents infinite potential and evokes a feeling of serenity and focus. It is a very powerful color and may represent corporate culture, academic institutions or serious enterprises of similar nature. The color blue lies right in the middle of spectrum with very diverse applications on both sides of the line. It can be used for corporate sites as well as news & entertainment websites. Play with different shades of blue to see what works best with your product.
Red & Yellow for the Jolly Fellow
The colors red and yellow are both examples of hyperactive colors that represent power, but may be overwhelming if used incorrectly. The youth normally associates with these colors (and their combination with other strong colors). Lighter shades of yellow, on the other hand, can be used on home & décor sites; food & wine blogs, etc. It’s all about exploring various shades of root colors and striking the right balance with a complementary color.
Green Ain’t Mean
Green is a good option for non-profits or websites offering “green” products, but too much of green can create usability issues as there are not many text colors that go well with a green background so it’s ideal to use it on borders, logos, or navigation panes with a white background.
To sum it up, your website’s color theme should be a representation of your actual business and the best way to do it is to explore a variety of color combinations with some basic root colors that are considered industry standards. The end result should be a neutral color scheme with a consistent and harmonious color palette that does not conflict with your web content (your website’s content includes images, like product photos).
Ali Asjad
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