Colors, Colors, Colors, and Colors
What is your favorite color? Why is it become your favorite? Somehow, the second question needs more effort to answer than the first one. People often do not realize how colors have affected their lives in one or more ways. Colors are far more vital matters than you may ever think. Colors are elements of design that people react to on a visceral level. Often, they do not realize they are reacting to it. For example, in the U.S. many hospitals dress their nurses in light blues and pale pinks. This is because these are calming, soothing colors, and upset patients relax a little in their presence. It is the same about website designs that many designers often do not realize that colors they choose may be having more of an effect than they realize.
First of all, when choosing the colors for your website, you always need to think of your audience, including culture, age, class, gender, and also trends. Is it a global audience? Is it primarily Western or Eastern? Are they older or younger? Are they male or female? All of these things and more can affect the color choices for your site. Once you understand your audience make-up, you can create a color scheme that suits them.
Talking about cultural differences, colors get hold of symbolism through cultural references in the culture you grew up in. Depending upon the culture, colors can have very different meanings and actually cause problems for your site. For example, in the East, white is the color of funerals while in the West white is the color of Weddings. If you were to design a Wedding site intended for an Asian audience and you used a lot of whites, you could be disturbing the people you are trying to reach.
What about age variations? Young children tend to prefer brighter, more solid colors, while adults tend to prefer more subdued colors. If you are writing to an audience of children and you are using muted pastels and shades of grey, their parents might like it, but the kids will be long gone before the page finishes loading.
For class diversities, marketing research in the United States has shown that working class people tend to prefer colors that you can name: like blue, red, green, etc. While more highly educated classes tend to prefer colors that are more obscure: like taupe, azure, mauve, etc. This is why Walmart does their store logo in bright red.
Now, let us see about gender disparities! In many cultures, men tend to prefer cooler colors (blues and greens) while women tend to prefer warmer colors (reds and oranges). Western men are also more likely to be color blind, and so unable to see some of the differences in color on web pages.
Regarding trends, colors, like everything else in design, go through ins and outs in popularity. Black web pages were all the rage a few years ago, and now you hardly see it at all, but no one can surely tell that it will not come back into style. Colors also tend towards seasonality, in other words, the designs reflect the season they were built in: winter blacks, whites, and greys; spring greens and bright colors; summer yellows; fall browns and golds.
|
By Location