Website Design Ideas – Perfect Color Choices

When you’re looking to design a website or blog an important part of the overall design is obviously the color scheme. If you are creating a website for an existing product, brand or business you’ll want to incorporate the color or colors from your existing branding into your new web design. If you’re starting out with a blank slate then you’ve got a lot of options.

How color works on the web

Colors on the World Wide Web are designated by what are called “hexadecimal color codes” or “hex codes” for short. These hex codes start with a hash or “#” sign and contain 6 digits made up of letters and numbers. For example the color white has a hexadecimal color code of “#ffffff,” the color black has a hex code of “#00000” and the default blue color for web links is “#0000ff.” There are literally millions of different hexadecimal color codes.

When it comes to talking about colors on the web be sure you know the hex codes of your primary design colors. Any web designer you work with will need them and, if you are doing your design on your own, you’ll need them as well. Just saying “I want it blue” is going to fall pretty short. To determine the hex code of colors you can use a full blown image editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint (which is free). There are also all sorts of free browser add-ons and stand alone programs, often called “color pickers” or “eye droppers,” that allow you to pull the hex code for any color you see online.

How to find color palettes

Once you have the hex codes for your primary design colors you’ll probably want to find a few complimentary colors to go along with them. Determining colors and shade of color that go together can be pretty tough for some of us (me included) but, like most things on the web, there are some great solutions out there. A quick search online for color “wheel” or “palettes” and you’ll find all sorts of great, free online tools that will help you find complimentary colors and even help you make color palates from images. Get out there and play around…you’ll be amazed what is out there to help you with this stuff.

Take Away

Get the hex codes of your primary design colors and work from those. With millions of different colors available to you for your website design you can get very, very specific on your color choices. Play around with different palates and color combinations. If you’re into design you’re going to love designing on the web!