Design Template by Anonymous

Color and Design

Although choosing colors when designing a website is vital to giving the website a more approachable and readable experience, there’s more to it than just that. Although we may not think about it often, every color that we see in design has been carefully thought out and selected to be as beneficial as possible. When designing a website, this idea is very crucial and must be understood.

When seen by a reader, colors can evoke strong feelings and emotions, even subconsciously. A big part of this is the effect of culture. Due to the world around us, we subconsciously start to associate certain colors with certain things. For example, when the colors red, white, and blue are together, most would identify them as the colors associated with America. Understanding this is therefore very important. If you were to design a website that focuses on something completely unrelated to America, you would not want to use these colors as your color scheme. It would not be a good representation of your website, as well as brand in general. Furthermore, this is why when designing a brand for your website to be known for, it is recommended that you choose a color scheme with as little unrelated correlations as possible. Of course, trying to create a completely new and unique color scheme is close to impossible, but it’s important to be aware of the other color schemes that may be inappropiate in certain contexts.

Colors often change meaning depending on the culture that is around them. When designing, it is important to be aware of the different meanings certain colors can take on. Here is a list of some examples of the associations some colors have in certain cultures:

Red

• India - purity
• China - luck and happiness
• Former Eastern European Bloc countries - Communism

Blue

• Western cultures - masculinity and loyalty
• Eastern cultures - immortality, spirituality, and heaven
• Latin America - religion

Orange

• Middle East - mourning and loss
• India - sacred color
• Japan - love, courage, and happiness

Yellow

• Egypt and Latin America - death and mourning
• Germany - envy and jealousy
• Certain African countries - success and money

Brown

• Middle East - harmony with the earth
• India - mourning
• Colombia and Nicaragua - disapproval