Selection
of Colors on your web site
With the choice of color being so important in the
traditional advertising world, it figures that it's
just as important on-line.
Colors have so much influence on our emotions that
the color red actually increases the blood pressure
and heart rate, while blue decreases them.
Use
the right color and you produce a desired effect on
the reader/viewer. The wrong color defeats the purpose.
Research
has shown that the use of colored backgrounds (in
the traditional media) evokes different consumer reactions
and emotions.
Bright Colors - recommended for impulse attraction.
Suggest spring, fresh, new.
Dark
colors - little attraction value. Heavy, sombre,
serious.
Light
colors - good impulse attraction,
depending on the color, attract attention outwards.
Yellow
- excellent attention getter.
Friendly, cheerful, inspiring, vitality.
Blue/Green
- has more impact than pure blue.
Turquoise has good impulse value.
Blue
provokes cool, fresh, trustworthy emotions
(though can be cold/depressing.)
Blue/green
is cool, fresh, clean.
Red
- hot, exciting, daring, passionate
But large areas of red are aggressive.
White
- background only
Grey
- turns off impulse attraction.
Black
- may be useful in special circumstances.
With the words/copy color is critical. For example
while 80%
of people find blue copy more "attractive" than black,
the
comprehension of blue copy is only 15% of black copy.
(conclusion .. black copy is better to use)
Something
else to think about are the subtle cultural
connotations that colors can take on in a foreign
setting.
While white denotes purity in Western countries, it
means
death in many Asian nations.
"Color takes on enormously different overtones from
one
country to the next," says one corporate consultant.
"That doesn't mean you can't use those colors.
It just means you want to rethink what the visuals
look like on your pages and on your links."
-->Some
Useful Color Links<--
Color
Schemer Online - Find out colors that 'look' good
together.
216
Web Safe Colors
A
wonderful essay on color, how it can trick you, color
schemes and more can be found by clicking
here.
