Choosing A Convincing Color Scheme For Your Website

Is the color scheme for your website more than just a matter of personal preference? Does it really matter what color scheme choices you make? Will your customer really feel and act differently because of the color combinations? The answer to all these questions is yes, yes, yes!

People have innate, unconscious, and emotional responses to color. It is very emotional, and every color has a positive and negative set of emotions associated with it.

Green is the color of money, but also, green symbolizes greed, envy, and jealousy? The color schemes you choose for your website will have a direct impact on how your customer perceives your website, company and product.

Colors fit into three categories – cool, warm and neutral. While you can select all of your colors from the same category, it is often possible to achieve a very powerful effect by introducing one from an alternate group.

The Cools

Blue, green, purple, turquoise and silver are cool colors. These often have a calming effect on the viewer. When used alone however, cool color schemes can have a cold or impersonal feel. When choosing cool colors, it is smart to add a neutral or even contrasting warm tone to avoid this.

Blue

Positive – tranquility, love, loyalty, security, trust, intelligence

Negative – coldness, fear, masculinity

Green

Positive – money, growth, fertility, freshness, healing

Negative – envy, jealousy, guilt, disorder

Purple

(purple is a combination of blue and red, so it is found in both the warm and cool categories)

Positive – royalty, nobility, spirituality, luxury, ambition

Negative – mystery, moodiness

Turquoise

Positive – spiritual, healing, protection, sophisticated

Negative – envy, femininity

Silver

Positive – glamorous, high-tech, graceful, sleek

Negative – dreamer, insincere

The Warms

Red, pink, yellow, orange, purple, and gold are warm colors. Warm colors often have an exciting effect on the viewer. However, when these warm colors are used alone they can over-stimulate, generating emotions of anger and violence. When choosing warm tones, adding colors from a neutral group will help to balance this.

Red

Positive – love, energy, power, strength, passion, heat

Negative – anger, danger, warning, impatience

Pink

Positive – healthy, happy, feminine, compassion, sweet, playful

Negative – weakness, femininity, immaturity

Yellow

Positive – bright, energy, sun, creativity, intellect, happy

Negative – coward, irresponsible, unstable

Orange

Positive – courage, confidence, warmth, friendliness, success

Negative – ignorance, sluggishness, superiority

Purple

(purple is a combination of blue and red, so it is found in both the warm and cool categories)

Positive – royalty, nobility, spirituality, luxury, ambition

Negative – mystery, moodiness

Gold

Positive – wealth, prosperity, valuable, traditional

Negative – greed, dreamer

The Neutrals

Brown, tan, ivory, gray, black and white are neutral colors. Neutral colors are a great choice to mix with a cool or warm color palette. Neutral color schemes are excellent for the backgrounds of a website. Neutrals also can tone down the use of other more overpowering colors.

Black

Positive – protection, dramatic, serious, classy, formality

Negative – secrecy, death, evil, mystery

Gray

Positive – security, reliability, intelligence, solid, conservative

Negative – gloomy, sad, conservative

Brown

Positive – friendly, earth, outdoors, longevity, conservative

Negative – dogmatic, conservative

Tan/Beige

Positive – dependable, flexible, crisp, conservative

Negative – dull, boring, conservative

Ivory

Positive – quiet, pleasantness, pureness, warmness

Negative – weak, unstable

White

Positive – goodness, innocence, purity, fresh, easy, clean

Negative – winter, cold, distant

So, what color scheme do you choose for your website? When you think about marketing your business, ask yourself… “What color will work best for my product, my message, AND my customer?”