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Color Your Web

by Christopher Schmitt

If all this discussion of color theory seems a bit overwhelming, which it was for me when I first started, but keep at it. Your pages will become better than others in time.

This article originally published by A List Apart, 1999.

Your color scheme can make or break your web site. In this article, we examine the basics of color theory and schemes to make color work in web development.

Color is the first item on which I judge a site, before either reading its offerings or moving on.

Yes, it's not the site's content that gets you past the front door. It's not how you broke down the architecture. It's not how tightly you compressed the graphics. It's not what new technology you've thrown at me - be it Java, Shockwave, ActiveX, ChromeEffects or Kai's latest Photoshop filter. It's your use of color.

Better use of colors means a better Web page or site. If you can carry a color scheme from the splash page to the exit tunnel, you'll automatically create a cohesive look and feel for your sites. By mixing hexadecimal tags, and forcing Web-safe colors to do your bidding, you'll earn one more little edge over a majority of Web pages out there today. With Web page production always exploding on the Internet, isn't that enough of a reason?

So, lest we simply slap down colors or steal schemes from other Web sites for the rest of our days, let's learn a bit more about Color Theory.

Before you can learn how to "mix and match" colors and know more about color theory, a foundation of a few vocabulary words is in order. Next>