..good!
p.s. Blaine - we are so building these when you get your new house!
pow, pow, power……
I know this is cheating - but Dr. Cipriano pointed me to this post. Since I am more then far behind…please enjoy the entire set
color me…
The impact of colour in website design
Many of us never consider the effects of colour. Psychologists have spent countless hours and millions of rands studying how colour affects our decisions and mood. It is important to pay attention to this subconscious influence when designing brochures, websites, logos, adverts, packaging, and pretty much anything that relies on human emotion and appeal. Interior decorators are required to make small spaces look bigger, tall spaces look cozy, cold, dark spaces look open and airy. They do this by using colours, lines and textures. We can do the same with websites, e-commerce web stores and online brochures. Although the effects of colour on the human psyche are not an exact science, it is still a very useful consideration when dealing with website design.
Colour Associations
For our purposes, we will look at the connotations in western culture.
| Black is commonly used to create a striking website. Black denotes formality, elegance, wealth and style. The contrast of a colourful picture against a black background is extremely powerful, and is the most popular background colour on photography websites. However, due to the difficulty experienced by most people to read light colours on black, it is relatively uncommon to see content-based websites with black backgrounds. | |
| Red is most commonly used in very small amounts on websites. Red is a powerful colour that denotes passion, strength, energy, fire, love, leadership, and power. In contrast, red is also known to denote danger, anger, radicalism, aggression and arrogance. Red is known to raise blood pressure, and is possibly the colour that incites the greatest extremes of emotion. As a result of these extremes, it is as likely to turn visitors away rapidly, as it is to encourage conversion of this visitor. | |
| Blue is widely used in business logos and corporate colours, and as a result on websites too. Blue denotes confidence, conservatism, loyalty, dependability, cleanliness, wisdom, royalty. As such many corporate websites are predominantly blue. It is believed that blue suppresses appetite and hence not a good choice when promoting food products. The effect is attributed to the lack of the colour blue in foodstuffs. | |
| Green is possibly the easiest colour on the eye. It soothes and relaxes, appealing to the visitor’s sense of nature . Green denotes generosity, growth, abundance, stability and luck. In more modern terms, the sense of nature is taken further, as green is associated with the sustainability of the environment – eco-friendly. | |
| Orange is a very energetic colour. Orange doesn’t evoke the negative response that red often does. Orange denotes creativity, energy, balance, enthusiasm, flamboyance, playfulness and desire. Orange is thought to promote appetite, and as such, is a good colour when promoting food. | |
| Yellow is a very visible colour. Yellow denotes joy, happiness, earth, optimism, intelligence, idealism, wealth, summer, hope, air and friendship. Yellow benefits from being in close proximity to other colours, causing it to appear more vivid. This is rather clearly demonstrated by the colour blocks on this page. The yellow appears to be the largest, when it is, in fact, the same size as the other blocks. | |
| Pink is a very feminine colour. Pink denotes femininity, health, love and softness. Pink is thought to create calm feelings, and neutralise disorder | |
| Purple is the least used colour in website design, and is generally only used to make a statement. Purple is thought to be the colour of royalty. Purple denotes creativity, wealth, royalty, nobility, flamboyance and enlightenment. |
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| Brown denotes wholesomeness, steadfastness, simplicity, friendliness, and dependability. | |
| Grey is an incredibly versatile background colour in website design. A light shade of grey is an excellent replacement for white, while dark grey replaces black perfectly . Grey mixes well with any colour. Grey denotes elegance, humility, respect, reverence, stability, subtlety and wisdom. | |
| White is the most common background colour in website design. In addition white space plays a crucial role in interface design . White is a “clean” colour. White denotes light, reverence, purity, peace, innocence, cleanliness, simplicity, humility and sterility. |
