Many web site designers are overlooking the importance of selecting the right colors for your web site. Not only all the colors should be in harmony to make it easy to read and follow the content on the web page but they should also communicate with your visitors, support your content and stimulate your site’s purpose and visitor’s browsing.

I will not be trying to explain the whole color selection process in this post since that would require a lot more space then what I have here but I will try to tell you a little bit about the meaning of some important colors.

Color Meaning

• Red – this is a very emotional and intense color. Red color is associated with energy, strength, danger, power, determination as well as desire and love. Use red color to bring text and images to foreground and to stimulate people to make quick decisions.


• Orange – this color combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow and it is a very hot color, so it gives the sensation of heat. Orange is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. It represents enthusiasm, happiness, creativity, determination, success and stimulation.


• Yellow – this is the color of sunshine. Yellow color is associated with happiness, intellect and energy. It produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity and generates muscle energy. When overused, yellow may have a disturbing effect. Use yellow to evoke pleasant, cheerful feelings but avoid using it if you want to suggest stability and safety.


• Green – this color has a great healing power. Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness and fertility. It has strong emotional correspondence with safety. Green is the most restful color for human eye; it can improve vision. Use green to indicate safety.


• Blue – it is considered beneficial to the mind and body. Blue is the color of the sky and sea. Blue is often associated with depth and stability. Blue color symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth and heaven. As opposed to emotionally warm colors like red, orange and yellow; blue is linked to consciousness and intellect. Use blue to suggest precision when promoting high-tech products.


• Purple – Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. It is associated with royalty, wisdom, dignity, independence and creativity. Purple symbolizes power, nobility, luxury and ambition.


• White – White color means safety, purity and cleanliness. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. White is associated with light, goodness, innocence and virginity. It is considered to be the color of perfection.


• Black – Black color is usually associated with power, elegance, formality, death evil and mystery. it usually has a negative connotation. Black is considered to be a very formal, elegant and prestigious color. It is the symbol of grief.

I hope this will help you to understand the meaning of colors a little bit more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 6th, 2005 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.