January 16, 2009
Web Design Guidelines for Colors and Themes
Your website is the face of your company, product or service, and you would definitely want it to look presentable, wouldn't you? Here are a couple of guidelines to use around the use of colors and themes for your website.
Color is used to portray a subtle message about the particular company, product or service. We, as humans are very sensitive to colors and immediately attaches a meaning to color when we see it used. Different colors therefore have different connotations and this should be taken into consideration in web design. It should be obvious that colors such as bright pink or purple are not really suitable for the website of an accounting firm – but website design companies often do not even have the freedom to tell their high-heeled, pink-lipsticked accountant that pink is not the right color for the website since often the corporate branding and colors have already been decided upon and might even be prescribed. It is therefore the job of the web design firm to fall in and utilize the corporate branding, images and logo to the best way in the website.
If there are no existing branding guidelines, it is then the job of the web design company to come up with a design that really fits the personality of the client.
It also goes without saying the theme (look and feel) of the site must also reflect the nature of the company, or product being advertised on the Internet. Some websites just lend themselves to the 'online brochure' look while others, especially in the arts and entertainment business, often wants something 'out of the box'. It is this 'out of the box' thinking that often leads to very bad web design indeed, since in the effort to come up with really cool concepts or funky websites, designers often forget about the one principle that is the most important in web design, namely that the site must be easy and straight forward for website visitors to navigate and get to the information that they require. Some of the worst websites on the planet are those of architects and graphic design companies, who, in their effort to be ultra cool, build sites that are totally impenetrable.
Obviously designing for different browsers as well as designing websites that comply to standards and make it easy for all types of visitors to browse the site, is an absolute requirement.
Filed under Blog by
