On the web, too many colors may disengage audience members
Categorized under: Web-Design-Articles
Scheming
Here’s a simple color wheel I created for a client, knowing that these would be the colors to define them. If you want to use more colors, remember that when you attempt to use too many, your work may lose it’s focus in the primary areas. The complimentary colors I chose above were meant to bring brightness into the final piece. Scientific research has shown that color increases readership, but unfortunately color costs more money when working in print, and on the web, too many colors may disengage audience members.
Take this site for instance, it’s full of colors, but the prospect of white in the center focuses the users attention. Each category has it’s own color scheme that defines the area the user has visited. When I had spoken to a friend, he said to me to use the negative space, although this site doesn’t use that perspective in full, I used the negative space to draw focus to the positive space, where you are currently reading.
When I select the primary color that will be used for a site, I usually also selects it’s complimentary color for focus. If i use green, purple will be the stand out color. Then I select a text color that will balance the site a bit. Normally a deeper grey achieves this, sometimes for richer text, I’ll use black. If I want bold, I use deep reds, which I know will catch attention.
I used to use black for backgrounds until I realized how much ink I was draining from printer, not to mention that all the negative space can have an impact on the final product. Use black if you want to emphasize one thing, otherwise, the product may seem smaller than what it is. White always makes things look bigger. Here, see this block of text in black and back to white.
— Zeus ::)
May 24, 2007
