When designing a web site it is essential not to underestimate the power of colour. This is something that we at South Wales Web Solutions will emphasis to any new client who delivers a brief and identifies a myriad of colours that they are considering to represent them on their site.
Colour is a language in its own right and will communicate a clear message to visitors to your site. The colour palette used can influence them and can help to convince them whether to undertake business with your company or not.
Colour is very emotive and visitors to your site will react to the colour presentation that they see. It is true that certain colours have more impact than others, so it is very important to be aware of your target market and to understand what colours will engage them the most.
Corporate websites will usually be presented with a cool colour pallete, which suggests a high level of professionalism, whilst Fashion websites will have more high energy colours which will stimulate faster movement through the categories presented.
All of these factors are a major consideration for our Web Design team
and we work with all our clients so that their target market is clearly identified and their preferences recognized.
Colours can have association with our emotions and when used in certain contexts can evoke certain feelings, which can make us feel happy or sad. It is therefore important to use a combination of colours that will induce positive feelings and make the visit to your site an enjoyable experience.
Choice of Colour It is important to limit the number of colours selected to represent your business, to one main colour and then an additional two to add contrast. These colours should be consistent with brand guidelines and deliver the same image as any other marketing material that has been generated by your company. Visitors to your site will gain confidence if the pages they see are consistent with other publications they have of yours. Too much variations away from this will cause confusion and even throw doubt on whether they are actually on the right site, so consistency is crucial and more likely to increase the length of their stay.
Additional colours can be considered, however these need to be used for strategic reasons, for example Red is often used to draw attention to specific areas on the page, whether this be to highlight a new product or even some kind of offer. The colour itself is associated with power and passion and as such will stimulate these emotions when seen and induce some reaction – in this case hopefully a purchase.
It is therefore not as simple as choosing your favourite colour and adding colours which coordinate with it. The colours have to be those, which appeal to your target market and which best represent your product. There is no room for personal preferences, if your site is to be considered a success then it needs to focus on the product and the customer. They need to be excited by what they see and not confused, they need to be able to read the content and not strain and links need to be differentiated, so they can navigate smoothly from one page to the next. This can all be done through creative web design, where a limited range of well balanced colours has been selected.
This is what South Wales Web Solutions aim to achieve with every website they design so that it is appealing to the right audience and ultimately generates a positive response.