Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The Importance of Color in Your Website

When creating your website there are a lot of considerations, not the least of which is the actual design and color scheme itself. This can affect your sales, how people see your company and how they use your site. There is an entire field of study called color theory or the psychology of color, but you don’t have to go to years of school to pick the colors for your logo and/or website.

I’d like to introduce you to the field of color awareness by briefly going over the reasons behind color theory. First off, there are physical reasons behind why color affects us the way it does. I don’t want to get sidetracked on this as it isn’t necessary to understand why we see colors the way we do, it is only important to understand how they affect us and how they affect the way we buy. I do want to point out that most of color theory is what they call “soft science” in that it isn’t really provable by scientific method nor can it be explained by mathematical reference. That doesn’t make it any less true. Statistics in sales often “prove” something beyond a shadow of a doubt.

First we will look at the primary colors. Because there are only three primary colors, all other colors come from those, making the primary colors some of the most significant. The three primary colors are Blue, Yellow and Red.

Blue, the color of the sky and water, is associated with coolness, serenity, stability and solidity. It invokes a sense of permanence and strength due to its association with the sky and the sea. This would be a good choice in colors for a financial institution or a mortgage company.

Yellow is almost always linked with the sun. This is pretty universal throughout the world, so this color conveys the same message in almost every culture. It is generally associated with energy, happiness, optimism, warmth and heat. Yellow captures people’s attention better than any other color because of its brightness. It is usually a good choice for schools, daycares and creative enterprises.

Red is the color of blood, so can be linked with vitality, life and passion. It is an aggressive color in many ways and is a hot color because of its association with flame and blood. It can also be used to convey danger. This makes it an exciting color and one that is associated with thrills and energy. It is often used in association with fast foods, certain restaurants and anywhere people want to associate vitality and thrilling energy.

More tomorrow on this very important subject.

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2 comments:

  1. This is a very interesting concept. This is not something that I have thought about too much, but it would be a very important process in helping your clients to feel more comfortable in the purchasing cycle.

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  2. Interesting although I have to say that yellow is not a primary colour. That would be green. RGB. Red and Green make yellow. Sounds weird but it's true.

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