When you envision your website and business logo, what’s one of the first things that comes to mind? Color! Color has the power to calm, comfort, energize and inspire. It is incredibly important to feel good about the colors you are using in your website. There is so much information about color and design that it could easily fill several books.
So, what color should your website, blog, and overall branding be? Well, that’s easy, you think to yourself, turquoise is your favorite color! But before you pick up the phone to tell the exciting news to your website or logo designer, consider this: your turquoise may be another person’s aqua, and when working with a graphic designer to custom create your website or blog, it’s important you all are on the same page.
And even after you’ve chosen the perfect shade that speaks to you and communicates what you and your business are about, finding hues that complement or pop perfectly is another challenge. Don’t let all these variables send you to color therapy. Instead, check out a few of these links to help you with every color conundrum!
- Colorcombos.com is the perfect place to start, if you want to test a combination of colors for your design project,. You can match colors exactly how you want them (in the Combo Tester or Combo Library). Once you choose your favorite colors, simply send the codes to your designer so that you will have these exact colors in your design.
- Color Scheme Designer is one of our favorite color design tools! If you have a favorite color in mind and want to see which colors are analogic to it, this tool can help you in just one click! It lists a ginormous variety of palettes that display complementary matches that can easily be exported into color codes for your website project.
- COLOURlovers is a creative community where people from around the world create and share colors, palettes and patterns. A perfect little spot to discover ideas.
- ColorMatters.com is an excellent site with a basic introduction to color concepts, why color choices matter, how different combinations can affect the harmony of a design and which colors are complementary.
- Logo Designer Blog and Logo Critiques are helpful links as both demonstrate how colors and different combination’s of colors will affect your logo and branding message.
The Color Effect:
“An executive for a paint company received complaints from workers in a blue office that the office was too cold. When the offices were painted a warm peach, the sweaters came off even though the temperature had not changed.” Pantone
Colors are one of the most influential ways that we can communicate our message and they each have unique meanings:
- Red – adventure, aggressiveness, passion, strength, love, energy and vigor
- Pink – gratitude, health, delicate, femininity, innocence and softness
- Orange – adorable, creativity, fun, youthful, cheeriness and warmth
- Yellow – happiness, joy, curiosity, positivity, playful, caution and cowardice
- Green – tranquility, harmony, nature, renewal, crispness, health and freshness
- Blue – loyalty, power, success, calm, authority, dignity, security and faithfulness
- Purple – sophistication, fantasy, spirituality, costliness, royalty and mystery
- Brown – utility, earth, natural, roughness, seriousness and subtle richness
- White – simplicity, clean, innocence, purity, truthfulness, contemporary and refined
- Gray – humility, respect, authority, practicality, stability, dullness and moody
- Black – seriousness, conservative, tradition, distinctiveness, boldness and classic
Color Wheel Schemes and Relationships
Color schemes are an arrangement or pattern of colors or colored objects that combine to form a whole.
Monotone and Monochromatic color scheme
A monochromatic color scheme consists of different shades of just one color and is easy to create. This combination of color can be very effective, soothing and authoritative. However, this type of color scheme lacks the diversity of hues found in other color schemes and may not be considered as vibrant.
Analogous color scheme
Analogous color schemes are colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. For example: Orange, Orange-Yellow, and Yellow. Analogous color schemes are often found in nature and are considered attractive and charming. The combination of these colors create a bright and cheery effect, and they can fit varying moods.
Complementary color scheme
Complementary colors are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange, red and green, purple and yellow. Complementary color schemes have a more energetic feel and the high contrast between the colors creates a vibrant look, but this combination may also be harder to use in large amounts.
Neutral color scheme
A Neutral color scheme consists of colors that are not found on the color wheel such as beige, brown, and gray.
Credits: Top Image Credit and information about Color Schemes