Color Significance for your Website

Color theory is the practice of using the meaning behind colors to bring about a sensory experience. This practice can be applied to web design with some knowledge and thought. Colors give sites meaning without having to use descriptive words. They create emotions and values that help show users what the company is about and what kind of products they are selling. Pairing colors can help change the meaning of a site altogether. Pair a soft blue site that creates calming qualities with a bright orange, and you could change your site to be more exciting and joyful.

Most colors can be taken in a positive or negative manner, depending on how it’s used, the other colors surrounding it, and the connotation of the site itself. Here are some general meanings of popular colors.

Warm & bright Yellow is a happy color representing the positive yellow qualities: joy, intelligence, brightness, energy, optimism, and happiness and is wisely used on sites that want to call to mind a feeling of happiness and joy.

Orange is a combination of its two neighbors on the color wheel, red and yellow. Orange symbolizes happiness, joy and sunshine. It is a cheerful color, evoking childlike exuberance.

Red symbolizes fire and power and is associated with passion and importance. It also helps to stimulate energy and excitement. The negative connotations of red are rage, emergency, and anger, which stem from the passionate and aggressive qualities of red.

Green symbolizes nature and has a healing quality. It can be used to symbolize growth and harmony. Green is also symbolic of money.

Cool colors like Blue are best used on professional and clean-cut sites to achieve a cool corporate look. Cool colors stir up emotions of authority, establishment, and trust. For example, cool shades of blue are used in many banking sites.

Purple is the color of royalty and sophistication showing wealth and luxury. It also gives a sense of spirituality and encourages creativity. Brighter purples can exude a magical feeling. It’s also great for promoting creativity and feminine qualities.

The color Black is often correlated with power, elegance, sophistication, and depth. On the negative side,it is associated with death, mystery and the unknown. Nike website is done mostly black and grey hues symbolizing the power of quality of their products.

White symbolizes purity and innocence. It also shows cleanliness and safety.Most Missionary websites are in white as it symbolizes hope and freedom, showing a value for safety and purity. On the other hand, Amazon’s site is mostly white, which is the best color to use for contrast and readability. It also shows cleanliness and helps users navigate the site freely. There are orange and blue accents to help people feel at ease when on the site, as well as excited and hopeful to find their perfect purchase.