Don't be blue about design!

Colour is everywhere, thankfully, or the world would look very boring! However, you can’t just put any colour mixture onto a webpage and hope it works. The websites of the 90s and 00s definitely showed us this!

Contrasting Colours

By using colours that contrast each other, like black on white, you can ensure that your content is easy to read and stands out to the user. This is important for accessibility, for example, it can help colour-blind users see a difference between elements which might not be obvious on a more subtle colour palette.

Color Contrast: For the Sake of Aesthetic and Accessibility

Influence attention

In an almost magical sense, you can use colour to influence what a user looks at when a webpage first loads. Eyes are drawn to brighter, more distinct elements. So if you have a grey, dull header but bright centre content on a page, then the user will immediately look past the header to the content.

RGB vs CMYK

There is generally two ways to mix colours. RGB (Red, Green Blue) and CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black). When it comes to design, its better to use RGB for websites as it looks bolder and more distinct and compared to CMYK. Inversely, CMYK is better for paper/physically printing as it’s much easier for a printer to mix the colours and produce good results.

cmyk color theory graphic

rgb color theory graphic

Using the right colour

Its also important to use the correct colours for your business. For example, food-based websites should avoid using too much blue as it’s more typically associated with medical settings, therefore resulting in negative perceptions. Red is considered a much more appropriate colour for food as it can invoke a feeling of hunger and warmth.

A short list of colours and their associations are:

Red – Food, Warm, Anger
Yellow – Caution, Happiness, Sunshine
Green – Ecology, Nature, Luck
Blue – Cool, Water, Calm
Purple – Magical, Rich, Rare
Orange – Attention-Grabbing, Cheerful, Excitement

Here at Yellow Cherry, we strive to deliver the best colour palette for your site so it always looks excellent for your business. Looking for a refresh? If so, then get in touch with us today and see how we can help.