Making Your Web Site More Appealing: Colors and Design

Color choices and color placement directly influence the emotions and decisions of the consumer.  In order to manipulate these variables to your advantage, you need to know how consumers react to different colors and designs. Keep in mind that different colors promote different feelings.  For example: 

l Cool colors like blue and green are generally considered calming.

l Hot colors like bright yellow or red are associated with anxiety and frustration.

l Warm colors, like gold and orange, are usually associated with light, warmth, or autumn depending on your demographic. 

Sticking to a single color can look boring, but using a variety of colors can cause confusion.  While professional web design companies can help balance the effects, it’s important to know how mixing colors can work for you. Combining warm and cool hues not only help create a memorable web site, they can also reflect your brand and mission. 

Professional graphic designers and Web design specialists are trained to create web sites that promote your unique business in a way that generates repeat traffic. By using your company’s colors and mixing them with a palette designed around your target audience, Web designers can help you create a memorable Internet presence.

Always keep in mind that the human eye is attracted to light colors and contrast. If you want to draw your consumer’s attention to a specific part of your page, contrast a lighter color against a uniform dark background. For example, you can use a lighter color for your tab browsing while keeping a darker color for your background.  The content of each page should be the focus, however, so you want to be sure that the background of your article or graphic is brighter than the rest of the page. 

Lines and curves can work to your advantage, too. Your consumer’s focus will follow lines and curves until they end. You can use this to direct your reader’s eyes down the page to a specific video or graphic. Take a look at a web page that you like. There is a good chance you can see how the page uses contrasting colors and simple linear structures to keep your eyes focused on the content of the page.

Web designers specialize in creating color combinations that not only reflect your business but also keep the consumer focused on your product.

This is the second in a series of articles on “Making Your Web Site More Appealing.”  The next article will focus on Navigation and Menus.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Web Site Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.