The Role of Fonts and Colors in Web Design
Colors:
Colors are very important to consider when designing a web page. It is the first thing a person sees when visiting a website. Colors will not only create certain mental associations, it can also create an emotional reaction by the viewer to it. When you are choosing which colors to use you must be aware of your audience, which demographic that will be mainly associated with it, and the area of the world that it will be mainly viewed in. Different colors mean different things in various parts of the world and the user must be aware of this difference and use it to their advantage when designing the website. There must also be a good contrast between the foreground and background color, but anything too extreme can be harmful more than beneficial. The designer must also be aware that people may have visual problems, such as color blindness and astigmatism. These conditions must also be considered when determining what colors to use for a website.
Some examples of colors and what they can represent to the viewer:
- RED: can represent energy, power, passion, danger, or death. It is a good color to use for accents.
- BLUE: can represent freedom, patience, trust, creativity, intelligence, cool, sadness or depression.
- YELLOW: can represent light, youth, optimism, happiness, joy, or being afraid or a coward. Yellow is a very easy color for humans to see, but is particularly bad when viewed on a white background.
- GREEN: can represent life, wealth, prosperity, peace, nature, fertility, newness or toxicity. Many safety companies use green as part of their logo, and green is a very popular color to use in website design.
- ORANGE: can represent friendliness, playfulness, courage, and can stimulate mental activity. Many easy-going and youthful designs incorporate orange.
- BLACK: can represent formality, elegance, evil, death, and depression, particularly in the Western world.
- WHITE: can represent purity, cleanliness, freshness, peace, purity, but can also represent death.
Some more information regarding colors and their uses can be found here:
http://www.digitalskratch.com/color-psychology.php
An excellent site for choosing colors to use for web design and other practical purposes: