Principle and Color Chanel
Quick Tips Tip 1: Limit your color choices The fewer the better. Creating a harmonious color scheme is essential and will tie your website elements together, making your page design well balanced. Color can grab the eye so using splashes of bright hues from your palette can highlight and emphasize certain information. You can also achieve depth by layering colors from light block tints to heavier shades creating information hierarchies with in your website design.
Tip 2: Contrast is Key Color contrast appears more intensely on screen than in printed matter so utilizing it correctly is essential for visual success. Complementary colors, those which are opposite on the color wheel, can work well together as they intensify each other when placed side by side. For typography however a different kind of contrast is required for optimum legibility, the most important factor for creating a website. Using pure hues can be too harsh on the eye, especially at smaller point sizes, so these should be kept for bigger titles to add distinction whereas neutral tones saved for the body type.
Tip 3: Branding Make sure you consider brand guidelines and devise a color scheme to enhance the company colors. Tints, shades and tones of the main hues can create versatile and exciting color palettes.
Tip 4: Going global? Where do your existing and prospective customers live? Which market are you targeting? There are plenty of cultural considerations to factor in when choosing colors due to the symbolism of varying colors throughout different parts of the world. For example in the East white symbolizes mourning whereas in the West white is for weddings and purity.
Tip 5: Consider color psychology Visitors to your website make subconscious opinions of your brand the moment they land on the homepage. The colors used are the first thing they see which triggers their subconscious response to that particular color scheme. Colors are psychological and all have inherent associations. Green is for the environment. Pink is feminine. Blue is for corporate and calming. Here are more examples of websites and their commonly perceived color connotations:
Gray
is neutral and conservative but
does imply security and reliability. It creates a great background for other colors. • Europe and Western: Plainness
Black
is the color of power and authority and in
excess it can be intimidating and unfriendly . • Western: power, control, intimidation • Eastern: wealth, health and prosperity • India: evil, negativity, darkness
• Japan: color of mystery and the night, may be associated with feminine energy - either evil and a threat or provocative and alluring
• Thailand: unhappiness,
White
is a blank canvas waiting for
creative stimulation. It implies efficiency and simplicity, fairness, peace and order. •
Japan: White carnation symbolizes death
•
Eastern: Funerals
•
Western: Brides, angels, good guys, hospitals, doctors, peace (white dove)
Brown
is a strong, reassuring color that is comforting
and reliable. It relates well to businesses that promote down-toearth and outdoor products and activities. • Western: down-to-earth, practical, comfortable stable, dependable, wholesome • China: In Chinese Horoscopes brown is the color for earth • India: Color of mourning • Nicaragua: Sign of disapproval
Purple
implies wealth, quality,
fantasy and creativity. It works well with many other colors. •
Thailand: Color of mourning (widows)
•
Western: Royalty
Blue
is the safest color to use in most
applications, implying honesty, trust and dependability. •
Cherokees: Defeat, trouble
•
Iran: Color of heaven and spirituality
•
Western: Depression, sadness, conservative, corporate, "something blue" bridal tradition
Green
is associated with nature, health and healing. It balances the emotions
and inspires compassion.
• India: the color of Islam, hope, new beginnings, harvest , virtue • Thailand: • color for Wednesday • Japan: eternal life, youthfulness, freshness • Indonesia: a forbidden color • Ireland: religious color for Irish Catholics , color symbol of Ireland - the Emerald Isle
Yellow
is an illuminating and uplifting color which
stimulates our analytical processes and assists with mental clarity. • China: Nourishing • Egypt: Color of mourning • Japan: Courage • India: Merchants • Western: Hope, hazards, coward
Orange
is a color of adventure which
inspires and creates enthusiasm. It is optimistic and sociable and suggests affordability. • Ireland: Religious (Protestants)
• Western: Halloween (with black), creativity, autumn
Pink
inspires compassion and nurturing. It is a non-
threatening color used most often in feminine businesses. •
Japan: well-liked by both males and females
•
Thailand: color for Tuesday
•
Korea: trust
Red
is a physical color which calls for action to be taken. Its high
energy and strength draws attention to itself and demands to be noticed. • China: Good luck, celebration, summoning • Cherokees: Success, triumph • India: Purity • South Africa: Color of mourning • Russia: Bolsheviks and Communism • Eastern: Worn by brides • Western: Excitement, danger, love, passion, stop, Christmas (with green)
Sources
• www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/colours-in-cultures/ • www.color-wheel-artist.com/color-meanings.html • www.isitintercultural-en.over-blog.com/article-cultural-meanings-of-co • globalpropaganda.com/articles/TranslatingColours.pdf
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