Color

Chapter two of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design deals with choosing color for the different elements of your web site. It is all really quite an interesting subject. There is a whole psychology behind the color and how people react to different types of colors. Different cultures associate colors differently as well as individuals based up their various experiences.

Here are some colors and what they are associated with:

• Red- People's blood really gets pumping with this color since it activates peoples adrenaline and blood pressure. It is an emotional color associated with passion, desire and love. Browner reds are associated with autumn and the harvest.
• Orange is an energetic color associated with happiness and represents sunshine, exuberance and creativity. It is more of an informal color and is less associated with corporations. Orange is also associated with food and cooking.
• Yellow is an extremely active and visually noticeable color. It is associated with happiness and energy.
• Green is associated with nature like the grass and leaves of trees. It is a calming color symbolizing growth, freshness and hope. It is color that is very adaptable for design purposes.
• Blue is associated with openness, intellect and faith. The color has been known to having a calming effect upon people. It also physiologically reduces appetite. It is associated with one's troubles such as blues music. Blue is connected with the color of water, sky and air.
• Purpose is associated with royalty and power. It was color that kings and queens would wear.
• White is associated with being clean, light, and pure.
• Black can be associated with death and evil but also with power, elegance and strenghth.

Colors have also been associated with temperature.

1. Warm colors are associated with the sun and fire like red, yellow, orange, pink, brown and burgundy. If a warm color is placed next to cool color the warm color is dominant producing perceptual emphasis.
2. Cool colors have a peaceful effect upon people like greens, blues and violet shades. Cooler violets contain more blue pigment. Cool colors are good for background colors or larger page elements.

Color Value is the measure of lightness or darkness. Tints are produced by adding more white to a color to soften the appearance. Shading a color is done by adding more black to that color.

Color saturation or intensity is the brightness or dullness of a color. Gray is added to colors to desaturate a color producing a dream like mood.

Web site colors are based upon the additive color model where colors are displayed in percentages of red, green and blue (RGB) light. This is as opposed to printing which is processed utilizing the subtractive color mode of CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black).

A RGB color wheel is diagram containing all the primary (red, yellow, blue), secondary (orange, green, purple) and tertiary colors (vermilion, marigold, chartreuse, aquamarine, violet and magenta). It is a source used to match complimentary colors.

There are six basic types of color schemes:

• Monochromatic uses one base color with tints and/or shades or that color.
• Analogous where colors are used that are adjacent of each other on the color wheel.
• Complementary use colors that are on opposite ends of the color wheel. Complementary colors are very different from one another and when used together can cause simultaneous contrast where use of the two colors together appear more vibrant and overpowering.
• Split complementary utilize colors adjacent to the base colors complement.
• Triadic uses colors that are evenly spaced on the color wheel.
• Tetradic or double complementary utilize two sets of complementary color schemes.

Achromatic color schemes use black, white and shades and tints of gray.

Color problems:

Discordant colors can occur when colors chosen are not exactly opposite each other on the color wheel to be complementary and not close enough to be analogous colors. The result is colors that clash.

Hexadecimal color codes are used to more efficiently describe colors with differing levels of red, green and blue for the web.

There are some excellent online color pickers for the web like Color Scheme Generator from WellStyled. This type of tool makes it easier to chose a harmonious color scheme.