Creating a Color Scheme

There are complex technical and aesthetic choices involved in developing a color scheme for a web site. Technical concerns might focus on such issues as web-safe palettes and download speed. Aesthetic questions might address color harmony (Do the colors look good together?) or color meaning/symbolism (What message do the colors communicate about the design?).

The following slides will discuss a variety of different approaches to color schemes. The first two are the simplest: monochromatic and mono-achromatic. If you decide to use these color schemes, you have no worries about clashing colors (since both use a single hue) but have a challenge to keep the design visually interesting.

Here is a sample of a web site that uses a mostly monochromatic color scheme (blues):
http://www.hellocode.com/frm_00.html
Notice that although the site is predominantly one color with variations in tint and shade, the designer also adds small amounts of other colors for visual interest.

The next site is almost all made up of greys. A mono-achromatic color scheme can be very powerful when combined with one other dynamic color.
http://www.brightchair.com/main.html