Colour scheme is not always predetermined or even in any way circumscribed. Either a company or product does not yet have a clear visual identity, or a design is to be created without any relation to the company’s visual style, and the task is to create a brand new and unique style. In such case, the choice of colours is entirely in the hands of the graphic designer. Primary decision-making regarding colour tone should mainly go along the lines of: the overall impression; the required emotions; the website’s main topics; and potentially also established standards, cultural customs, etc.
A website for children probably should not be black, one dedicated to lawns will often be green, a travelogue about a polar expedition will be based on shades of white. A theme park’s website will likely be bright and multi-coloured, while one for an interior designer will be calm and pastel toned, and an art or photography showcase will be outright muted and sparse in colour to avoid a clash between the website’s interface and its distinctive content. A website dedicated to a particular country might make use of its national colours, a medical one of surgical white and turquoise, while for a website of an established law firm, we should at least consider the conservative combination of dark blue and red. On a site about nice and pleasant topics, warm colours are likely to prevail (in the colour wheel, they go from magenta through pink, red, orange, all the way to yellow and yellow-green); on the other hand, on a site giving a serious or industrial impression, cold colours might reign (the other side of the colour wheel, from greens, through shades of turquoise and cyan, to blue, violet, and purple).
When choosing colours, we must not forget their various connotations, culture and religious symbolism, marketing links, or even things like pop-culture references. Both individual colours and certain colour combinations can – in different contexts, different environments, and in different user groups – evoke all sorts of notions and emotions. And the important thing is to choose colours in such a way as to make these notions and emotions positive, and avoid the undesirable and negative ones. In a Euro-American Christian environment, for example, black is considered to represent grief and sadness, while white is a festive colour – in other cultures, Asian, for instance, it can be the other way around.
In the context of politics, different colour combinations take on yet another meaning: red and yellow, typical for communist symbolism, would be a borderline affront to republicans; some will be offended by the combination of black and red, reminiscent of Nazi symbolism; while shades of green will be shunned by parties casting themselves as contrary to “green” political opponents; and so on. And in business, it is important to work with company colours and corporate identities; not only our client’s, but also reflective of the wider market environment. If our client is launching a website for their new product, and their main competitor’s site is famous for its yellow design, it will likely be crucial to avoid yellow at all costs (unless the client wants to attack said competitor head on by deliberately choosing a colour scheme that is as similar as possible). Joyful colours and playful colour combinations will seldom be suitable for serious and conservative websites (although to create a presentation for, say, a law firm in pink and orange would surely be a challenge any graphic designer would embrace), while for entertaining and light content, we should steer clear of dark and sombre shades. To try and design a gossip magazine or a children’s website in dark and cold colours would probably be beyond the realms of possibility…
