When you're designing a website for your business, one of the things you'll need to decide on is an appropriate color scheme for your brand. How do you choose one that will help your business stand out? A color palette for a website will typically include a dominant color, a secondary color, and accent colors. You want to create a cohesive look and avoid overwhelming visitors with too many colors, so choosing the right set of colors is important. There are a few things to consider when deciding on a color scheme:
1. Industry /Purpose
First, decide what colors best represent your industry and your company's values and purpose. For example, an electric company might work with a bright, high-contrast color scheme, while a spa might choose softer, more muted colors.
2. Tone
Next, decide what tone or mood you want your website to create. For example, will it be vibrant or calming? Color psychology indicates that different colors create different associations and emotions when people see them, so you'll want to ensure your mood fits your purpose.
3. Logo/branding
Your decision will be easy if your business already has a logo or brand colors! Choose colors that represent your brand and make people think of your logo.
11 Color Scheme Examples
Below are examples from CIS Agency's portfolio of client websites that use unique color schemes to represent their business.
1. Warm Hues
The warm half of the color spectrum encompasses reds, oranges, yellows, and gold. Palettes using these colors feel warm and inviting, evoking the hues of autumn or a sunrise. Unique Body Shop's glowing palette of brown and yellow tones echoes its logo and makes its site feel welcoming and unique, like its name. The golden color used throughout evokes associations with awards, suggesting their excellent service record.
2. Cool Blues
The other side of the spectrum contains cool hues, most notably blue. Blue tends to be associated with trustworthiness, professionalism, and calm feelings, which is perfect for Michael A Kraley's CPA firm. This is a monochrome color scheme, as it sticks to variations of the same color.
3. Neutrals
Neutral colors include black, white, gray, and brown. These neutrals can be paired with other cool or warm hues to balance out a palette or stand alone for an elegant, minimalistic color scheme. Nature's Envy salon and day spa's use of neutrals fits with its natural theme and creates a calm, sophisticated mood that matches well with what its business offers.
4. Complementary
While the previous examples have largely worked with one part of the color spectrum or used variations on the same hue, let's see examples of how to mix different colors to create different effects. One way to combine colors is with a complementary color scheme. Complements are colors that fall on opposite sides of the color wheel and create a fun contrast while looking pleasing together, like the orange and blue used in Moes Construction Pool and Spa.
5. Neutral with a Bright Accent
Parkside Homes uses a base of cool gray for its website but adds bright pops of chartreuse green to liven things up. Choosing one bright accent color is a great way to spice up a neutral without going overboard.
6. High Contrast
The services section of MD Automotive's website goes bold by using a saturated yellow for the background, while each service stands out in dramatic black on top. The yellow makes the page feel active and optimistic, while the darker color draws the eye to the services.
7. Nature Tones
Sharper Image Lawn Care has compiled a palette of greens for its website, which perfectly matches a business focused on the outdoors. With this type of color scheme, greens work great together with browns and yellows to create a soothing, earthy feel and make visitors feel like they're out in nature.
8. Fun and Whimsical
At 3rd Street Dance, it's all about fun and energy! Washes of blue accented with eye-catching magenta give this website a distinctive personality. Bright and quirky color combos work especially well when broken up with plenty of white space, like this one, to ensure the eye of the visitor's senses aren't overwhelmed.
9. Black Background
Video production company Visionaery makes a statement with a black background that showcases its work beautifully. Using a black canvas creates an online space that doesn't distract from their content. The black background also allows the logo's gradient colors to attract attention.
10. Bright White
Plain white can also be used to create a clean canvas for displaying photos or content. Interior Images' website is clean and minimal, with the white background drawing out the white finishes in their décor photos. When they use color, they do so sparsely, with the ruby accents simply drawing the eye to where it needs to go without dominating the screen.
11. Creative and Colorful
Finally, some websites use multiple colors creatively and effectively, like this one that incorporates primary and secondary colors as accents. Kroll Furnace Heating and Cooling reinforces the six colors of its logo by including them in small amounts under the featured image on each page. This helps visitors further associate these colors with their brand.
Now that you've seen some options, what color scheme would work best for your business's website? The possibilities are endless! If you need help designing your website, the team at CIS Agency has the expertise to help you create a stunning design.