colours on website?

[mmmdreg]

I'm thinking of making a website to occupy my time after my school exams...what colours do you people like to see on a site (eg. background, text etc) because sites have to look alright to the general population to be accepted...

[mac15]

anything blue
it usually gets people....or something thats clean and not ot bright so it stands out

[mmmdreg]

dark/light background?

[Ensign Paris]

Be very careful with the colours you choose, black text on a while or light colours black ground is probably the best (All my sites are pretty much opposite to that :))

Stick with Colours that work togethor, like MacRumors, Greys and Blues, don't pick colours such as Purple and orange or Green and Pink they just don't work!

Ensign

[Ensign Paris]

Only example I can give is ColinRose.net (A site I did) Its easy to read and navigate but it still needs one hell of a lot of work.

Sorry for the double post but I thought I clicked Edit on the previous post but I actually clicked Quote, and after I had posted it realised there was no going back :)

Ensign

[mmmdreg]

do people like frames like railheaddesign.com? or just plain tables?

[kishba]

take a gander of kishba.com if you get a minute... i'm pretty proud of the color scheme (which is mostly blue/gray)

i've designed a few other sites that are mostly blue and they've had some success with their target audience... like ensign said, try to stick to blue, gray, other colors that "match"

but also try to have fun designing the site (and DON'T use frames, please) :)

[Ensign Paris]

Never use frames, they are probably the worst thing ever made, try to use Cascading Style Sheets where ever possible they speed up the job in the long run.

I would advise using Tables where ever possible because it makes the site easier to manage and it makes it look more professional in the web browser.

hey kishba that is one nice site u hav there :)

Ensign

[Beej]

Originally posted by kishba
take a gander of kishba.com if you get a minute...I love that traffic sign! :D

[mmmdreg]

Originally posted by Ensign Paris
Never use frames, they are probably the worst thing ever made, try to use Cascading Style Sheets where ever possible they speed up the job in the long run.


hey kishba that is one nice site u hav there :)

Ensign

what do cascading style sheets do?

BTW nice site kishba...

[Ensign Paris]

I would advise looking at:

http://www.pageresource.com/dhtml/indexcss.htm

Do you know Style Sheets in Quark XPress? They are a similar concept controling the style of the site from a central file (like style.css) I don't use them but have just started to use them :)

Ensign

[Mr. Anderson]

It depends on what you're going to be using it for. If its more graphical, go with a color, even black. If there is a lot of text you should keep to lighter colors, works better for text.

my two examples:

www.dukestreet.com - graphics

www.flossing.org - more text

[cleo]

Great site. I like the road sign. Reminds me of one in Tampa that says "U-Turn OK." :D

[Zenith]

Take a look at the color schemes at these two sites:

Zocas.com (http://www.zocas.com/flash_en.html)
OrgConsult.no (http://www.orgconsult.no/oc/english/)

I kinda liked the light orange/yellow/grey "sand-colors".
I made those sites about a year ago.

[macfreek57]

its' been proven that white is absolutely the best background color for a webpage
+ it looks nice!

[kishba]

Originally posted by macfreek57
its' been proven that white is absolutely the best background color for a webpage
+ it looks nice!

i agree completely about using white... ALL text that you want a reader to look at and read should (i am not brave enough to say must) be black on white... it's okay to use other colors on the web site (even in the background of the page) as long as you put the important text in a table that has a white background

thank you (everyone) for looking at my site... i plan for it to be an actual blog where i update the site daily but i haven't had time to implement my plans quite yet. stay tuned... i'll be updating the site VERY soon.....hehehe i talk as though you guys all care about visiting ANOTHER site besides macrumors

[Choppaface]

CSS will usually look different from browser to browser. if youre going to use a new technology like that, you will prolly be better off making different style sheets for different browsers.

frames arent horrible, its just people often misuse them. iframes are better, IMO, but not supported everywhere

check out styleboost.com.....tons of inspiration there

[Zenith]

or lynda.com (http://www.lynda.com).

[Classic]

Here's a couple of links that may prove interesting/useful.

The first is an entry into http://www.the5k.org from 2000, by IDEO. It's a handy website color visualizer that gives you hex numbers for backgrounds, text, etc... Incidentally, IDEO designed the first mouse for Apple.

http://entries.the5k.org/171/visualizer.html


Secondly, for a site that is plenty colorful, check out http://www.colourstudio.com

My fiancé and I designed the above site, it features colorcoded navigation and information architecture.

In general, color is extremely subjective and renders differently on every screen. So, test, test, test... And then be prepared to hear plenty of positive and negative criticism either way.

One thing I would suggest is the simple use of complimentary colors. Your eye craves the complement of every color. That's why you have aftervision. For example, stare at something red, and then look at a white wall, and you'll see green. So, to balance it out using complements is a good technique.

Here's a good Color Theory 101 link: http://www.webdesignclinic.com/ezine/v1i1/color/

[Zenith]

What a great site..! Nice work with colorstudio.com, Classic.

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by Zenith
What a great site..! Nice work with colorstudio.com, Classic.

indeed. wow. that's one of the most visually interesting and kind of exciting sites i've seen. i love those colors.

granted, they're not suitable for every occasion, but in this case. superbly done.

[Ensign Paris]

Originally posted by Choppaface
CSS will usually look different from browser to browser. if youre going to use a new technology like that, you will prolly be better off making different style sheets for different browsers.

frames arent horrible, its just people often misuse them. iframes are better, IMO, but not supported everywhere

check out styleboost.com.....tons of inspiration there

CSS look the same in all browsers, it is not a new technology, it is quite old now!

People cannot misuse frames because they are just plain bad, they create a BAD user experience.

Ensign

[jvaska]

practically any color is a good color...it just depends upon how you use it...

cowpathing is a good concept to consider...here's a link to an article about it...although this is a little dates...the concepts are there...

http://www.method.com/methodlab/methodlab.html

look for the "cowpaths" link...jv

[Choppaface]

Originally posted by Ensign Paris


CSS look the same in all browsers, it is not a new technology, it is quite old now!

People cannot misuse frames because they are just plain bad, they create a BAD user experience.

Ensign

yes CSS is relatively old (in internet time...), but with people still on the net who have NS3 or IE4, its new to them, and don't count on your pages looking the same for them. and CSS does look slightly different in different browsers. pop http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ in different browsers (from NS3/IE4 and up) and you will see different results. I'm getting some text clipping just looking at it in IE 6. doubt that W3C intended for that to happen

and i guess you must just not like frames, but check out the 'normal' version of ultrashock.com. frames might be pretty weak as an interface element, but don't rule them out so quickly as a design tool.