What Do Your Color Choices Say To Your Visitors?

Colors – they say a lot about a website. As a society, we’ve been studying colors and the associations behind them for a long time. There have been sociological and psychological studies performed, history studied, and more. No matter what is behind how we perceive colors, there is no denying certain colors evoke certain emotions. What are the colors of your website saying to your customers?

Stay Calm with Blue

Image via Flickr by stevendepolo

Blue has long been seen as a calm, cool color. In web design it also shows that you are trustworthy. There are a variety of major companies that use cool shades of blue to help portray this in their branding. Take Microsoft for example. Blue works great with any number of products and industries.

Grab Attention with Yellow

Image via Flickr by Upupa4me

Yellow is a bright color that is going to grab your visitors’ attention. In color theory, it is seen as a youthful color that is associated with creativity. Yellow is rarely used as the main color on a site because of how jarring it can be, unless it is a very subdued shade. Instead, it is used as a highlighting color. Frequently, yellow is used on creative sites, such as ones for bands, writers, or artists.

Get Back to Nature with Green

Image via Flickr by Walt Stoneburner

Green is a very natural color. Depending on the shade of green used, there is different symbolism. However, in general, it is a color of safety. In addition, when we see green we think of money. Like blue, green is seen as a calming color. It is used in many different natural products, grocery stores, and herbal supplements.

Exude Sophistication with Black

Image via Flickr by Axion23

Black is the new… well, black. This is a color that never goes out of style, especially in web design. It is seen as a color of sophistication. It can easily be overused; however, in the right amount, it is a very sleek color that looks great with everything.

Get Excited with Red

Image via Flickr by Hammer51012

Red can mean a variety of things; however, all of them involve getting riled up. Red can mean danger, excitement, love, or even stop. Red can be good or bad, though in most web designs it is seen as a negative. Red is used as a stop most often in design. Make sure you are very careful about how you use red in your design, or you may evoke the wrong emotions.

Create and Calm with Purple

Image via Flickr by matthewvenn

Purple has traditionally been seen as a royal color. However, it is also seen as a very creative color. Since it is a cool color, it is calming. Many brands use shades of purple to help evoke calm creativeness, and even feelings of wealth, hearkening back to the old view of purple being a royal color.

Invoke Action with Orange

Image via Flickr by anantal

Orange is an action color. It is vibrant and gets people ready to go. The color has long been associated with warmth and passion. When you want to add in an accent color that gets people ready to buy, orange is a great option.

Consider your colors

Color is important to web design. The colors you choose should look good together, but they should also evoke the right emotions. Keep in mind that these are general guidelines, but each website and customer set is different. We always recommend testing any color changes you perform on your design.

By Jon Correll