People have emotional reactions to colors; that in turn, can make or break the visitor’s feelings about your website, your brand, your company and ultimately your entire business. Keep in mind that a lot of these reactions happen on the ‘gut’ level, meaning that people don’t even know they are having these reactions!

Also, just like scents, color reactions aren’t the same in every single person, but when you’re dealing with the internet, first impressions (and other people’s first impressions) count a lot!

Let’s take a look at colors and what they ‘mean’:

White – purity, virginity, cleanliness, hope.

Gray - conservative, reliable, maybe a tad boring. Gray is a standard in business clothing.

Blue – calm, trustworthy. Blue is used very often in the financial and health care markets.

Red – anger, violence, lust. Red is a great color to attract attention but should be used sparingly.

Yellow - warm, happy. Has a relationship to eating (McDonald’s arches aren’t yellow for nothing).

Brown – earth, nature. Can also be seen as dirty or unclean.

Black – power. On the internet, black is too often used on pornographic sites, or other sites that are ‘dark’ in nature.

Orange - halloween. Works well and is often used with the soothing power of blue.

Pink – a pale cousin of red, most often associated with feminine pursuits.

Green - money and wealth.

Purple – creativity to a point. Too much becomes garish and dated.

Colors Online

All monitors will display colors differently. There are 216 web-safe colors. If exact colors are important, look into web-safe colors.

Things to consider with colors and website design

• Text – do not use colors or white text on black backgrounds; it’s extremely hard on the eye. Likewise, other light colors on dark backgrounds are very distracting. Unless there is a good reason not to, always stick to dark text on a light background.
• Consistency – colors should be used sparingly and in a consistent manner across a website. For example, if your navigation is black text on a creme background on the home page, it should be the same or a complimentary variation throughout the site. Discordant colors are jarring and leave the visitor feeling ‘unsettled’.
• Bright colors, such as red, yellow, orange, etc., should be used to make points and should not be the main ‘theme’ of a site.
• White is good – white space should ALWAYS be used as a design element. It helps line everything up to the eye, as well as giving the eye ‘resting’ points so that it can fully enjoy the colors in other locations

Bottom line: color is EXTREMELY important, both in attracting a visitor to your site, keeping them there, and making the sale.

What do you think? Do you have the same reactions to colors as I listed above or are your experiences different?  Do you ever use color to make a statement? I’d love to hear your comments.