How to choose a perfect color scheme for my Website Designing – Essential tips to pick a website color palette

Choosing a color scheme for the website designing in Singapore is quite challenging as colors in general has the tendency to change users mood. As a Freelance Web Designer, I have shared my views on choosing a color theme for the website development which will not affect the users interest, distract the users from your website. Color is also an effective way to communicate. Likewise, each brand use color to represent a specific meaning to their product.

Perfect color scheme for website design in Singapore by Subraa

For example: Coca Cola use red as their brand color. It helps their product to look attractive in the stores and also the color red triggers certain emotions like excitement, boldness, love, and passion.

Colors can do so much and with colors you can do so much. Colors can also have a huge negative impact if its not used wisely. So you should learn the art of using the colors properly.

Why is a color scheme important for a website designing?

The visual aspect of a website pretty much influence and attract viewers in the first contact itself. And the visuals depend highly on the colors that are used. A study that was conducted by the University of Winnipeg in Canada revealed that 80% of the viewers were attracted to the color scheme and 80% of the viewers were able to identify a brand easier through its color. A pleasant color scheme will provide a comfort while going through your website and it can also increase the readability of your website.

How to choose a perfect color scheme for your website:

Choosing a perfect color scheme is one of the many challenges that a website designer face while designing a website. Because a bad color combo can lower the traffic of your website. Color can be used for brand recognition, but if the color scheme that you use do not create a good visual appearance then it is of no use. 

Selecting a color scheme for your website is not a one step thing. You should analyse several elements to do it effectively. There are different characteristics for each color. Hence it is important for you to know the characteristics of a color before using it. Below is a list of a few major colors with its characteristics.

Black:

Black represents luxury, power, elegance and sophistication. It can also be used to market luxury brands because it evokes a sense of professionalism, strength and precision.

White:

White represents purity, innocence and simplicity. Website designing as such needs the right amount of white space to look good. Too much white space would result in the lose of interest for the viewers and too little space might also decrease the readability. 

Grey:

Grey is cool, calm, balanced, emotionless and simple. It also gives a sense of richness and luxury like black. Lighter shade of grey is the popularly used shade of grey.

Red:

Red represents passion, energy, excitement, energy and strength. It is used to create a sense of urgency for the viewers to buy the product.Color is also an effective way of communication while working on website design. It is very attractive than any of the other colors. Using too much of red might create an unpleasant experience. So use red moderately by applying it to only important elements. 

Blue:

Blue represents trust, security, stability and freedom. Most of the communication based applications use blue as their main theme (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Skype). Blue is also common to gender, because both the male and female gender like blue. 

Yellow:

Yellow represents happiness, positivity and youthfulness. It can easily grab the attention of the audience. It can also stir the sense of excitement, creativity and positivity. 

Green:
Green represents nature, harmony, safety and tranquility. Green is the second most favourite color after blue. It can be used to represent companies related to agriculture or the company that want to show that they care about nature and environment. It can create a balanced feel among the viewers who visit your website.

Pink: 

Pink represents feminine, sweetness, romance and care. It is often used to represent the products of women or young girls. Pink naturally attracts women. It is considered as a color of romance.

Orange:

Orange represents warmth, enthusiasm, health, fun and freedom. If you don’t want to use red for your Call To Action button then orange is the next good choice. It attracts the impulse shoppers as they are in a hurry.

Purple:

Purple represents royalty, wealth, wisdom and pride. It creates a soothing and calming effect on people. It is used to represent beauty and anti-aging products.

3 Steps to choose colors for your website:

1. Choose a dominant color.
2. Choose at least 2 accent colors to create a color scheme.
3. Choose a background color.

Step 1: Choose a dominant color

The dominant color of your website should be your brand color. This is the color that will pop in your audience’s mind when they think of your brand. So, make sure you pick the right color that suits your brand and customers. Your brand color should attract your target customers, therefore, in order to choose a brand color you should have a detailed knowledge about your brand and its target customers. Your brand color should speak about your brand and its products. Not all colors are right for your brand and some colors that are right for your brand might have a huge competition.

Some colors are gender friendly because they are liked by all genders. For example: blue and green are gender friendly hence can be used for brand that targets both male and female customers. And your dominant color should attract your target customers. Like, if you want to attract youngsters, try yellow and if you want to be seen as royal and luxurious use black.

Now that you have learned how to choose your dominant color, learn how to use it in your website. Color attracts attention, so don’t use it everywhere. Only use your dominant color in important places like headlines, CTAs (Call To Action) and Sign up button etc. Basically, your dominant color will pop the viewers and make them notice it first. Therefore, make sure you do it only for important things. 

Step 2: Choose 2 accent colors to create a color scheme

It is very boring to have one color throughout the website. Hence, using at least 2 accent colors is mandatory. You can highlight noteworthy elements of the articles by using the 2 accent colors. You cannot just randomly choose 2 accent colors for your website design, because it is hard to tell which colors can blend easily without a lot of trial and error or a phD in color theory. But there are other ways to get them. It is using color matching tools like Adobe color CC.

Adobe color CC is very simple to use. You can find your accent colors by using any one of the following types in Adobe color CC. 

1. Using the dominant color to find your accent colors.
2. Use a photo as an inspiration to find your accent colors.

Now that you know how to get your accent colors, let’s see how to use them effectively. Accent colors should be used to secondary important points in your website. These may be your sub-headings, secondary buttons, information boxes etc. Using too many accent colors might cause unpleasantness and confusion to the users. Accent colors should only help the dominant color, it shouldn’t overpower it.

Step 3: Choose a background color

Choosing a background color is like picking a wall color,  because to paint a wall you should pick a color that you can watch for several hours and not get bored. Same way here you have to choose a color that does not bore your visitors at the same time it shouldn’t affect the readability. So you should pick a color that is not over bright or too dull that might make the reader to glaze the most important information.

You can also use a picture or the logo of your company as your background. For a fashion, design, restaurants, beauty and creative industries you can literally use any background image or color, as long as it doesn’t affect the readability of your write ups in website designing.

The main rule that should be followed while choosing a background is that it should not make the content hard to read.

Your perfect background color is the one that allows your content to be the main feature and also work along with the dominant and accent colors, at the same time it shouldn’t make the readers to feel any discomfort while going through the content. When you are very doubtful about using a background image or color, then go with white or light grey. It might not be an inspiring color, but at least it will make your content shine through.

Sometimes you may become biased due to your personal attachments towards a color but it might result tragically, so make sure that you research deep enough before choosing a color. Find your complementary colors carefully because it can also make your website unattractive. Picking the perfect color scheme is one activity, that takes a lot of time even for a professional freelance web designer Singapore. For more information visit my blog for perfect color scheme of website designing.