Color is a very important part of the web as it plays a major role in how a website looks and distinguishes itself from all the other millions of websites online. Using principles of color theory, designers can create a scheme to reflect mood and to create presence. The selection of colors should be limited and consistent throughout the design to aid in memorability and usability.
Web color began with a simple palette of
216 colors that display the same way across Windows and Mac systems; but as technology continues to grow, many web designers are going outside that comfort zone and working with the 16 million colors that many of today's video cards and monitors will display. These colors are known as
browser safe, in that they will look the same regardless of the browser the user views the website in. It is better to use the
hexadecimal identifier than it is to use the color name because it will keep everything consistent.
There are many different color picker tools available online to help web designers find a color scheme that will suit the web design. One of the first color picker tools was created by
Bill Dortch, and was known as Color Center. The original color center cannot be found on the web, but
Cedge offers a comparable tool by that name. Bill Dortch is a pioneer in the development of
Javascript applications and framesets and using the codes to assist web designers with choosing color schemes for their websites.
Besides color pickers that will help you locate a color scheme and the corresponding hexadecimal code, there are
color scheme generators created with Javascript applications. Many of these color scheme generators will allow the designer to choose the
type of color scheme—monochromatic, complementary, triad—and make adjustments to the hue, saturation, and contrast, and
then allow export of the color scheme into
ACO format for use in Adobe Photoshop
CSS for styling the website, in addition to the standard hexadecimal color codes.
Bear in mind though that for print-outs because of discrepancies between
ink cartridges, some colors may print differently than they appear online.
CSS Juice offers consistently updated posts that provide designers with
25 popular color scheme generators.
Free Web Master Tools offers a hexadecimal color code generator and color picker to help designers who want to develop their own schemes or those who have been given colors by a client.
Web Reference provides an extensive list of
web color and graphics resources to help all designers.
Web Design provides a series of articles and resources for web designers who want to learn more about
color theory and the web.
Bright Hub's Web Development Channel provides a
guide to choosing color schemes.
ColourMod provides a DHTML color picker for Windows and Mac systems.
This was written by
Printerinks.com the home of Printer inks and Laser Toner