Color choices influence to some degree how a website and the company behind it are perceived. Depending on your message, your choice of colors can help convey integrity, strength, calmness, ability, excitement or action. The following is a brief synopsis of some generally held beliefs about the impact of different colors.
When determining which colors are right for a website, you are not just choosing one color. Rather, your site should have a unified and harmonious set of colors, and there are many options to consider. We can utilize a monochromatic color scheme, i.e., variations in lightness and saturation of a single color, or analogous color schemes that use colors that are adjacent to each other on the “color wheel” or many other combinations including complimentary and split-complimentary, triadic and tetradic schemes. For this article, however, let’s just consider the impact of individual colors rather than in relation to each other.
Red is considered to be an emotionally intense color. While red is commonly associated with danger, it is also used to stimulate people to make quick decisions. Red is highly visible, so using it to bring text and images to the forefront makes it a perfect color for “buy now” or “add-to-cart” buttons.
While not as aggressive as red, orange is also a highly visible color, ideal for calling attention to or highlighting the most important elements of a design, without causing stress.
Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy. Use yellow to evoke pleasant, uplifting feelings. You can choose yellow to promote children’s products and items related to leisure. Use yellow carefully however, as a dull yellow represents caution.
Green is the color of nature — symbolizing growth, harmony, and fertility. Green has a strong emotional link with safety and is considered to be the most restful color for the human eye. Green suggests stability and endurance, making it a perfect fit for finance-related design, but is also used to indicate safety, making it a viable choice for medical-related design.
Blue, often associated with stability, symbolizes trust, wisdom and confidence. Blue has been shown to produce a calming effect and is often used to promote products and services related to cleanliness. More accepted by males than females, it is a preferred color for corporate America.
Black typically carries a negative connotation but carries with it a feeling of perspective and depth. Strength and authority are also attributed to black. Although black backgrounds diminish readability, combined with other intense colors such as red, they remain aggressive and unique, good for attracting a risk-taking mindset.
The above ideas only touch the surface of color theory, but perhaps they help you think about whether your present website colors send the message you wish to project.