In the last post I stressed that designing for mobile is important in today’s very smart, smart-phone world. And a big part of that design is the use of color. There is psyhcology to color: A corporate feel would call for blues and grays. A children’s website would be totally the opposite by using bright greens and oranges. Fortunately, there are many tools to help you pick the palette of colors that will work for you. (Try paletton.com or Adobe Kuler, now called Adobe Color CC, for some guidance.) Your logo may be already designed and include several colors. Start with that. But don’t limit yourself either.
It’s not about what color you choose, it’s how you use it. Don’t overdo it with an explosion of colors, meaning many different colors on one site. A selection of three or four colors are plenty. “Consistent, color saturated design ensures your pages will stand out among others and look great on mobile – even with reflection. No matter the color, it’s all about being bold and making a statement.”
Coschedule did a two-month study on the popularity of a given color in their graphics. They found that blue and green were the highest performing colors. Both of these colors reflect a calm, clean, comforting presence. Blue is also one of their brand colors. The other two top-performing colors were red and orange, which are the perfect complementary color matches to blue and green. Use the brighter colors to grab attention or for a call to action.
We also like to add neutrals to the mix to balance out the color in the website. One way to do this is to choose your primary color, say blue, and add a percentage of gray to it and use both in your layout. This will add to the sophistication of the design.