use of colour in your website design part 2

Its very important that your choice of colour works in harmony together as there's nothing worse than a website design with a colour scheme which clashes, or text that's just impossible to read. There are a few pointers however that I can recommend to help you make the best colour choice for your brand identity and website design.

After reading part 1 of this blog, you should now have your primary colour selection for your website design and corporate identity. Now you can create your secondary colour palette, which will work perfectly with your primary colour choice. The following tips will aid your decision.

The secondary colour palette

The best way to select the secondary colour palette is to use a colour wheel. A colour wheel is an organisation of colours around a circle. There are 4 basic colours; the primary colours, which are Blue, Red, Green and Yellow. Every colour on the wheel between are a mixture of these.

A brief overview of how to use the wheel is as follows:

•    All the colours within a third of the wheel will work well together in harmony.
•    Any 3 colours spaced equally around the wheel will work well, although it is best to have one as a dominant colour with the other two being used to 'set-off' the effect (For example buttons).
•    Any two colours across the wheel are complementary. With one colour used as the dominant scheme, and the other colour to 'set-off' the effect.

I would recommend to choose 6 colours for designing your website, which work well with your primary colour, ensuring that you have chosen colours which will set-off elements in your website design. They do not necessarily need to work well together, as you are unlikely to use all secondary colours in one design, but have the flexibility to use 2 or 3 together with the primary colour to give good design flexibility when creating your corporate identity.

A good colour palette will create a good corporate identity and result in an awarding wining website design. Now you have this selection you can begin your logo design, and brand identity. If you would like some tips on logo design, read the previous blog titled 'corporate identity - creating the best logo design'.

If you want your colour choice bought to life, or a perfect scheme selected for you, contact the team at Advansys. We can design everything from your logo to your corporate website design. Check out our professional website design portfolio. If you already have a website, but want a website redesign, we can help optimize your current solution using various design tips and tricks.