Want To Use Color In Web Design? Here’s How You Can Do It…

By Author: Tanuja Dongre
Total Articles: 6
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It is interesting how current landscape of color in website design is on everyone’s mind. Most of the website looks more or less the same yet color may be a powerful tool in design.

This is not anything revolutionary or extraordinary. But if most websites have similar schemes of color, it means a lot for color. But more of it would look like rainbow filled website and it’s like each paragraph is bolded in an essay. So when the color schemes are muted, it allows for many opportunities.

Attract attention to what you want

Most of the Website Designs begin with a grayscale look- white background with black/grey text. Color comes in as accents which get one to look places. That’s why websites aren’t filled with color- they use it to get a person to reach out for buttons, links or headlines.
For instance, Vibrant, their home page has the background images of black and white. The logo, call to action and the hamburger menu are bright yellow so they stand out and grab the attention of the user quickly.

Another example is Take it; their homepage greets the user with big blue background. ...
... However, everything else is white. The big headline which is the front and center also attracts attention. Shortly after one notices the app store button, that’s how color can guide a user’s attention.

Build Personality

Color has the ability to set a tone and mood for the website or a brand, that’s why it is so wonderful. For e.g. Beagle service for creation of small projects and their site begins with light earth tones. Scrolling down the homepage, one can find pleasant shades of brown, charcoal, green and even pink. The earthly tone looks professional and elegant in order to make an impression on behalf of the company.

An interesting day is a website which is designed for weird one day conference on a tiny island. One gets a weird sense of different on seeing red background with red text on top of it. It’s not something one sees every day. Looks great but most importantly the color scheme conveys the personality of the event clearly.

Make a Great Statement

Making a statement through color can be fun. Ensure that the color stands out and attracts the user attention which is easy but it also has to be a good choice and statement. The color scheme should make sense with the purpose of the website, its look and feel; you can’t just pick any color.

If a symphony website is vibrant, fun and creative, a hot pink color makes sense. You’d expect a calmer color as symphonies are more elegant, but it must go with website purpose.

Provide it with Flow and Cohesion

Color can be used to guide a user along with a flow. It can be subtle and doesn’t need to be dramatic. It is helpful when the hues are cohesive among each other. It is basically how the color for the brand works.

Take for instance, Marvel and Dropbox, both these apps have blue color in their graphics but one get to see green, orange or red that fit well, it’s like they make sense.

These two color scheme help guide users along as they scroll down the pages making for a cohesive and pleasant flow.

A different kind of example is innovation project canvas which uses green color to guide a user along their page while scrolling. For a great looking flow, one don’t need many colors, it can be achieved with a single color too.

Color in Images

An interesting trick with color is when it is used through images. UI elements are not the only ones that can add some color to a website. It’s a good idea to try to use the composition of images to bring colors to the designs with the rising use of photo background and big product photos on landing pages.

CartoDB is an application which helps track the visual location data. What better way to show off how great their service is than by showing a map? That’s what they do at the top of their home page. It is a brilliant way to speak for the product while adding the visual interest and color to the page.

Speaking of the product which speaks for themselves, ETQ too lets their shoes outshine their UI. The website is fairly minimal in style which extends to the color scheme as well. They focus on the merchandise instead.

Who needs color anyway?

Websites without color are interesting to see and find and sometimes good to know that it’s not needed. They can still look gorgeous apart from reds, green and blues. Grayscale color schemes can create necessary look and feel for the brand as well as can make a statement.
Lack of color can look unique, grabs the attention which is okay and can look stylish as well as great in just plain black and white.

Conclusion

Color is powerful, it can do a lot of things for a design if you let it; it can guide through a flow as well as make a grand statement. It is full personality and can be fun to work with. Personally, color, or a lack thereof gives life to a design, so have fun experimenting with it.

About The Author

The article is written by Tanuja Dongre, associated with SureVin, one of the leading service providers of BPO, ITES, Skill Development services, Digital Solutions & Marketing, Data Enrichment & Management Service, Training solutions and HR Consultancy to our clients. With the right balance of technical expertise and vast industry knowledge, SureVin strives to create customer satisfaction considering the nature of work with an innovative approach maintaining integrity and confidentiality of the business.