Practical Tips For Selecting A Color Scheme For Your Website (Six Tools To Help You Do Just That!)

Practical Tips For Selecting A Color Scheme For Your Website
Colors are fun. A color scheme can make or break your site and selecting a good color scheme is partly art, partly science. A lot has been written about colors and the science of selecting colors. People have spent a lifetime over the science of colors, I'm not going to pretend I'm better than the experts. But I will list some tips and resources which helped me decide good color schemes.

Though there are some best practices for selecting color schemes, I believe, one should not be bound solely by these rules and you should experiment with various colors. One good example is Flickr. What a gorgeous website! There was a time when the color pink was a big 'no-no'. Yet Flickr makes very good use of this color. The color is used sparingly, complemented by blue, accented by a bright shade of grey.

I am not going to list 50 color resources which you can easily find from delicious! Really, any list more than 7 to 10 is, in my opinion, really not very helpful. But there are some resources, I find myself going back to again and again for reference each time I'm in a 'color dilemma'. I'll list those in this article.

Is there a good, short tutorial on color theory?
If you know nothing about colors, I suggest this one flash based tutorial which is absolutely fascinating! This wasn't even written primarily for the web. But the principles are the same, whether you are applying it for traditional media or the web. Make a cup or coffee or microwave some popcorn and get settled with this tutorial. This has a wealth of information and they make it so easy to understand.

An easy technique for selecting a color scheme
You tried various color schemes, but you are still not satisfied. Nothing seems perfect. Happens to all of us!
If you completed the flash based tutorial you'll realize that nature is the best teacher when it comes to selecting colors. Why not let nature do the work for you? Here's a method I use when nothing seems to work. Go through your old nature photographs or browse a photo site for nature pictures. Select a photo that you think looks pleasing. Either use the color picker tool or use this resource to get a breakdown of the colors. Experiment with those colors on your website.

Can you suggest a good tool for sampling colors?
There are times you might come across a pleasing website. It is always good to note down what color scheme the site uses. It is not enough to say 'Red' and 'Blue'... the actual shade matters. Download this small, but nifty plug-in, ColorZilla, that lets you sample colors from any website. What? You don't use firefox? Oh boy! :)

I like the color, but I want a different shade!
I've run into that problem! And working with html hex codes for darkening or lightening a color shade can be daunting. I use this site which lets you do just that. I also recommend this site.

Preselected color combos
There are numerous resources on the web that can help you with that! But I normally use ColorCombos.

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