WEB COLOR CONSIDERATIONS

When we start designing a web site, we think about its layout and its style but we often overlook one of the most important aspects of the design: color. All of us have color preferences, but there are some basic guidelines which are universal when it comes to web colors.

First, you've got to know your web color limitations. Browsers can see a large number of web colors – they have a 256 color pallet. That's the good news. The bad news is that they can't all see the same 256 web colors. So what are you going to do? You have to stick to those web colors which are the most common so all of the browsers are going to be able to see the web site correctly. If you don't, your site may end up looking strange and being difficult to read on some browsers. That's definitely a bad thing.

Beyond the limitations of the web color pallet, you should realize that some web colors work better for some things than others. Let's talk about text. You want people to read the text, so you need to choose a text color and a background color that work well together. The golden rule is that you need to choose colors with a high contrast, such as black and white. Combining red and blue, on the other hand, would be hard on the eyes.

You should also use web colors sparingly. Just because you have 200+ web colors at your fingertips that doesn't mean you have to use them all. Choose three main colors and use those on your site. One of those colors should be bright, maybe yellow, because it will be eye-catching and works well for anything that you want visitors to hone in on. However, use it sparingly because yellow and similar colors are hard on the eyes of your visitors.