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Choosing A Color Scheme: Yellow: Cheerful, Sunny, Upbeat, Happy, Luminous, Intense. Popular Example

The document discusses choosing an appropriate color scheme for a website. It states that color scheme is the most important factor for building appeal, mood, and ambiance on a site. While web colors are different than traditional media, the old color theory principles still apply. The document provides examples of established color schemes for well-known brands like IBM, Chicago Bulls, and Victoria's Secret that websites cannot deviate from. It also suggests considering the audience and purpose of the site when choosing colors. The rest of the document outlines common associations and emotions evoked by different colors in Western culture.

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Andre Purnama
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62 views

Choosing A Color Scheme: Yellow: Cheerful, Sunny, Upbeat, Happy, Luminous, Intense. Popular Example

The document discusses choosing an appropriate color scheme for a website. It states that color scheme is the most important factor for building appeal, mood, and ambiance on a site. While web colors are different than traditional media, the old color theory principles still apply. The document provides examples of established color schemes for well-known brands like IBM, Chicago Bulls, and Victoria's Secret that websites cannot deviate from. It also suggests considering the audience and purpose of the site when choosing colors. The rest of the document outlines common associations and emotions evoked by different colors in Western culture.

Uploaded by

Andre Purnama
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Choosing a Color Scheme

Its worth repeating that the single most important thing you can do to build appeal,
mood, and ambiance for your site is to select an appropriate color scheme. There really
are no awful colorsany color can look attractive when placed with appropriate color
companions. Even though web colors are mixed differently than traditional media, that
doesnt mean that you need to learn all new theories to make color work on the web; the
old theories about pleasing color schemes still hold true.

For instance, yellow always looks good with its related color of orange whether the yellow
was created with paint (subtractive color) or pixels (additive color). Sometimes the color
scheme is a given: we cant imagine IBM allowing any color other than blue to dominate
its web site, or the Chicago Bulls using any colors
other than red and black, or Victorias Secret using anything other than pink, or the
Republic of Ireland using anything other than greenWell, you get the idea. Many
organizations have long-established color schemes from which you simply cannot
deviate. In this case, creating the color scheme for the site can be as straightforward as
choosing colors from the logo, followed by choosing a few additional tints or shades of
those colors for variety. When you are allowed to choose your own colors, you fi rst need
to consider the audience and purpose of the site. A site for children might employ
primary colors or some other design of fully-saturated brights. A rock group site might
use a funky combination of neon colors, or a dark and murky scheme, depending upon
the mood the band wants to project. A more staid and stable color scheme, like
monochromatic blue, is appropriate for a corporate site (again, think Big Blue, IBM).

Colors evoke particular associations and emotions in our minds. Here is a summary of
some of those associations for the Western world:

Yellow: cheerful, sunny, upbeat, happy, luminous, intense. Popular example:


The
high-energy label of the Absolut Citron logo.
Orange: energetic, cheerful, glowing, vital, upbeat, playful, happy, comedic,
festive, loud, popular with children. It carries many of the same qualities of its
components of yellow and red. Orange lost popularity for many years because
of its association with the period of the late 1960s and early 1970s but is now
making a comeback. When lightened to peach or coral: soft, upscale,
nurturing, healthy. When darkened to deep rust: sensual, earthy, spicy, warm,
ethnic.
Popular example: The vibrant orange of Sunkist Orange soft drink cans.
Red: Attention-demanding, energetic, exciting, courageous, hot, aggressive,
dynamic, fi ery, intense, passionate, sexy, bloody, warning, angry, prideful.
The
most attention-gathering color. When deepened to shades and tones: rich,
lush,
elegant, refi ned. When lightened to hot pink: shocking, energetic, youthful,
trendy, vibrant, faddish. When lightened to paler pink: romantic, tender,
feminine, sweet, sentimental, soft, delicate. Popular examples: the energy of
the red
Coke logo and the feminine mood of Victorias Secret.

Purple: rich, elegant, creative, spiritual, confi dent, eccentric, sensual, daring,
futuristic. When deepened to a darker purple: regal, majestic. When lightened
to lavender: soft, sweet, genteel, nostalgic, delicate. When grayed to a tone:
sophisticated, subtle. Popular examples: the magnifi cent feel of the traditional
purple robes of royalty.
Blue: tranquil, calm, peaceful, meditative, restful, reliable, traditional, clean,
fresh, cool, icy, alluding to sky and water, divine, cold, sad. When deepened to
darker blues: powerful, authoritarian, credible. When lightened to pale blues:
soft,
serene. When tinged with green (like teal): rich, unique, upscale, appealing to
both
genders. When tinged with purple (periwinkle): warm, trendy, energetic.
Popular
example: the reliability implied by IBMs Big Blue color scheme.
Green: natural, fresh, clean, healthy, hopeful, youthful, abundant, rebirth,
spring,
soothing, cool, clean, woodsy. When deepened to darker greens: richness,
security, safety, prestige, safe, secure, stately. When lightened to paler
greens:
calm, soothing. Popular example: The Kelly green that represents the Republic
of Ireland or the healthy green packaging of Green Giant foods.
Brown: durable, earthy, rustic, organic, healthy, ethnic, substantial, solid,
timeless, reliable, stable, antiquity, permanent, drab, dirty. When lightened to
tans
and beige: rock, sand, natural, classic. Popular example: UPSs drab but
eminently reliable brown color scheme.
White: pure, clean, chaste, pristine, innocent, bright, clarity, hygienic,
healthy,
stark, minimalist, cold. When deepened to off-whites: warm, friendly, calm.
Popular examples: white is the color of wedding dresses and the hero on the
white horse in Western culture.
Black: sophistication, elegance, chic, dramatic, mysterious, powerful, stylized,
somber, ominous, foreboding, death, depression, despair, fear. Popular
example:
The elegant black of the Chanel logo or a mans tuxedo.

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