Color is a key component of any project, especially a website. Creating a website color scheme is exciting and essential. The right color combinations aligns with the brand’s identity and communicates the correct message to the target audience.
Here are some tips and tricks when choosing a website color scheme before working on the web design.
Tip 1: Think about Brand and Target Audience
Before diving into the color schemes for your website or creating a website design, it’s essential to understand and brainstorm about the target audience for your website and the brand color.
Is it going to be a B2B site? Is it going to be targeted towards young moms? Ask all the right questions to your clients and you’ll eventually be able to narrow it down to a category.
If done right from the beginning, the brand and the target audience will determine the course of the whole project, making it much easier to create a color scheme and a website that attracts the right customers.
Branding should be done in a way that it resonates with the target audience and is easily recognizable, and a color/color scheme plays a huge role in that. A correct website in the end will align perfectly with a business and the brand.
Tip 2: Consider color emotion
After you’ve established a target audience, the next essential step is to familiarize the client how color affects humans on an emotional level.
Unless you are working with a predefined logo that already has a color that the client wants to incorporate, you can start with a blank canvas.
For example, universally, royal blue represents trust, upscale, high end etc. Pink is more feminine and romantic.
Tip 3: Find your primary color
By now, you’ve established your target audience, the market you’re planning to target with the website design and a little bit about color emotions.
Now, you can use establish a primary color for the website. If you’re still stuck on which color to start with, you can always consult with the client and pick a color that they resonate with the most or if they have a favorite color they’d like to see. For example, a client might just keep bringing up a website that they really like and it can actually be a good start to use a color-picker and use the primary color from that specific website design.
Tip 4: How to choose Color Scheme
Once a primary color has been selected, you’ll need to add more colors. Assuming that you’ve selected a primary color (or two options), we can create a few color schemes. Use the color wheel to find complementary colors. Here are my two favorite tools:
Tip 5: How to decide on number of colors to use
You’ll notice that generally there are 5 color options available in the color scheme maker. It is essential to make sure that the colors create a good balance of contrast and a similarity.
While there is no formula that determines the right amount of color for a project, there is a good rule of thumb and a color theory- 60-30-10 rule
- Primary Color: 60%
- Secondary Color: 30%
- Accent Color: 10%
This rule suggests that the primary color should cover 60 percent of your website space, secondary should cover 30 percent and accent around 10 percent of the website.
In addition, do not forget a couple of neutral colors in your website design and color scheme: the white, gray and black tones.
Tip 6: Decide on where to use the different Colors
- Primary colors is usually used as an attention getter or hot spots on a website layout: CTA buttons, Logos, headlines, Links etc.
- Secondary color is used to highlight less important but essential elements such as subheading.
- Additional Colors are used for text, background etc. to tone down the site and refocus the eye.
Tip 7: Compare a few different color schemes
Do not commit to the first color scheme. I recommend preparing 3-4 different color schemes and compare them for a day or two. Ask for opinions from someone else or post it on Reddit and see what the consensus is.
I like to present and compare the color schemes in this format:
In the end, narrow down the color scheme to something that fits with the brand recognition and discuss with the client along with research and facts.
Conclusion
It takes a few tries throughout the website design process to fine tune everything. With some tips, tricks and research, it becomes very easy to decide a website color scheme and color palettes that works. Being mindful of what is primary, secondary, and where it fits into the design will create a lower bounce and a higher conversation rate.
