Recently I’ve been reading Vandelay Design’s blog. Vandelay has several galleries showing a huge listing of colourful web sites. The sites catch your eye and make you want to see what else the company has to offer.
Colour and Design
On the cool side of the colour wheel are blues, greens, and purples. These colours tend to have a calming effect. On the other end of the cool spectrum they tend to be antiseptic and impersonal. It is here in the cool spectrum that you find the universal favorite colour, blue.
On the warm side of the colour wheel are red, yellow, and orange. These are the colours that stimulate us. It is no surprise that they are related to the strong emotions of either optimism and love or anger and violence. Orange is the colour that people tend to love or hate.
Mixed colours like orange (yellow and red), purple (red and blue), and green (yellow and blue) take attributes from both of their parent colours. With the optimism of yellow and the calming favorite blue, green is the favorite mixed colour. It is considered a pleasant background colour by many and an energetic colour in its brighter forms.
When it comes to web sites high intensity colours, while stimulating, can overload your visual senses. You need to balance the intensity and saturation of the colours you use. The eye needs a place to rest. While some sites do not degrade to greyscale well, many other sites have assembled the right balance of colour and accessibility. Let’s go out and colour our world!
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