Colour isn’t an aspect of business website design that necessarily gets mentioned all that much, which might be surprising to some of us. After all, the intelligent use of the most impactful shades has long been central to marketing.
The reality is that no matter how important the likes of your website’s images, body copy and typefaces may be, colour is still the first thing that visitors assimilate on their arrival at your site.
As human beings, we are programmed to associate colours with certain emotions. So, what are certain colours commonly linked with, and what could the implications of their use be for your site?
Your choice of colours should depend on a range of factors
Before determining the colours that are to be used on your site, you will naturally need to have a decent sense of what you wish to communicate about your brand to its audience. While some companies aim to convey values like excitement, passion and ‘living on the edge’, for others, it’s qualities along the lines of security, dependability and intelligence that they most treasure.
Red, for instance, is among the most frequently used colours in marketing, and has long been linked to such characteristics as passionate love, danger and violence. It’s certainly a powerful colour, which is why so many brands use it as an accent, rather than main colour to capture immediate attention without overwhelming website visitors.
Your choice of colours should depend on a range of factors Share on XYellow is another colour that is great for drawing attention, and is associated with qualities ranging from happiness and warmth to enlightenment and sunshine. Or what about blue? Many people regard it as their favourite colour, and with it being such a common colour in nature, such as in the sky and water, it is unsurprisingly seen as a colour of peace, serenity and infinity.
We could go on and on mentioning different colours and their respective associations – green with growth, orange with friendliness, purple with sophistication and so on. The important thing is to know their very real role in business website design so that you can use them intelligently.
In the process, you should also bear in mind any potential differences in colour meanings that may apply across the various cultures around the world that may be exposed to your site.
Get talking to us about business website design
The above should be just a starting point for thinking about the effects that various colours could have on the design of your website – effects for which you will need to test during the design process itself.
Contact the PENNInk Productions team today and we can help to ensure that colour is given its rightfully prominent place in considerations for your own business website design.
Edward Solomon has over 30 years’ experience in project management, technical education, computer networking, web design and development and is a Digital Business Consultant for PENNInk Productions Ltd.
