Choosing the Right Colors for your website

When choosing the right colors for your website you are to make a very serious decision. You can’t simply say to yourself, here’s a great color let’s do it, there’s so much more into that and you must give it thought.

Web colors are colors used in designing web pages, and the methods for describing and specifying those colors. Authors of web pages have a variety of options available for specifying colors for elements of web documents. Colors may be specified as an RGB triplet in hexadecimal format (a hex triplet); they may also be specified according to their common English names in some cases. Often a color tool or other graphics software is used to generate color values. The first versions of Mosaic and Netscape Navigator used the X11 color names as the basis for their color lists, as both started as X Window System applications.

Web colors have an unambiguous colorimetric definition, sRGB, which relates the chromaticities of a particular phosphor set, a given transfer curve, adaptive whitepoint, and viewing conditions. These have been chosen to be similar to many real-world monitors and viewing conditions, so that even without color management rendering is fairly close to the specified values. However, user agents vary in the fidelity with which they represent the specified colors. More advanced user agents use color management to provide better color fidelity; this is particularly important for Web-to-print applications.

Hex Triplet

A hex triplet is a six-digit, three-byte hexadecimal number used in HTML, CSS, SVG, and other computing applications, to represent colors. The bytes represent the red, green and blue components of the color. One byte represents a number in the range 00 to FF (in hexadecimal notation), or 0 to 255 in decimal notation. This represents the least (0) to the most (255) intensity of each of the color components. The hex triplet is formed by concatenating three bytes in hexadecimal notation, in the following order:

Byte 1: red value (color type red)

Byte 2: green value (color type green)

Byte 3: blue value (color type blue)

For example, consider the color where the red/green/blue values are decimal numbers: red=36, green=104, blue=160 (a greyish-blue color). The decimal numbers 36, 104 and 160 are equivalent to the hexadecimal numbers 24, 68 and A0 respectively. The hex triplet is obtained by concatenating the 6 hexadecimal digits together, 2468A0 in this example.

Note that if any one of the three color values is less than 16 (decimal) or 10 (hex), it must be represented with a leading zero so that the triplet always has exactly six digits. For example, the decimal triplet 4, 8, 16 would be represented by the hex digits 04, 08, 10, forming the hex triplet 040810.

The number of colors that can be represented by this system is

An abbreviated, three (hexadecimal) digit form is sometimes used. Expanding this form to the six-digit form is as simple as doubling each digit: 09C becomes 0099CC. This allows each color value to cover its full range from 00 to FF. The three-digit form is described in the CSS specification, not in HTML. As a result, the three digit form in an attribute other than “style” is not interpreted as a valid color in some browsers.

When designing a stylesheet.css, make the right choice and know what the colors that you are choosing actually resemble. I recently stumbled over UrbanOutfitters.com’s website and nearly puked when I saw their design. I once tried to present this yellow over black color to an art directors and her words were “This should be on a Fuel or Oil product and I agree.

Study the colors, see what they resemble, then head to websites like Color Blender (http://www.colorblender.com) and begin sampling your idea.

Color is symbolism. We say someone who is jealous is “Green with envy”. Someone who is sad is said to be “Blue.” When we are angry, we see red.” Colors affect us psychologically. They can stimulate our appetite or suppress it. They can make us happy, excited, angry or sad. Let’s take a look at colors and what they mean to your visitors. Then we’ll discover the different color combinations and how they apply to your Web site.

Warm Colors

Red: Red is one of the most powerful and attention-getting colors. Red symbolizes passion and fire, love and lust. It has been proven to raise blood pressure and cause perspiration. Red reflects energy and can motivate an individual to take action. It can also symbolize war, violence, blood, and aggression.

Pink, however, is the softer side of red. Pink is romantic, calming and feminine.

Orange: Vibrant and warm, orange is associated with autumn, pumpkins and Halloween. It inherits many of the traits of red, but is less passionate. Orange has been known to stimulate the appetite. As a citrus color, it can also symbolize health.

Yellow: Yellow symbolizes sunshine and warmth. It can mean hope, light and energy. On the other hand, it can mean weakness or illness, or symbolize cowardice.

Cool Colors

Green: Green signifies health and growth (vegetation) and wealth (money). Green symbolizes spring, renewal, and fertility. It can also mean jealousy or inexperience.

Blue: Blue is one of the most calming colors and is associated with the sky and the sea. It is considered to be a “safe” color and signifies intelligence, reassurance, and trust. Blue has also been known to be an appetite suppressant and can signify depression and sadness.

Purple: The combination of red and blue, purple is one of the most intriguing colors and symbolizes creativity. Purple is spiritual and mysterious. Deep purple is associated with royalty and richness while
lavender is associated with romance and nostalgia.

Neutral Colors

Black: Black can represent power, elegance, and sophistication, but it can also represent death (Western culture), evil, anger and sadness.

White: White represents cleanliness, purity, and spirituality. It represents life and marriage in Western cultures, but it represents death in Eastern cultures.

Grey: Grey is the combination of black and white. It is a conservative color. Grey can symbolize security, maturity and reliability, but it can also signify gloominess and sadness.

Brown: We like to classify brown as a “special” color. Sometimes brown can be used as a neutral and sometimes as a warm color. Either way, brown represents credibility and stability, the hearth, home and the earth.

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