Colour combinations
To find a good combination of colours you can look at a colour wheel.
The colour wheels below show some different combinations that are available, and are labeled with arrows.
Remember these combinations can also depend on aspects such as brightness and contrast so experiment!
A colour wheel shows the colours in the colour spectrum, and by looking at it you can see what colours will work with others.
Complementary
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<h3>Split-complementary</h3>
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<h3>Triad</h3>
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<h3>Tetrad</h3>
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<h3>Analogous</h3>
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<h3>Monochromatic - Different shades</h3>
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7 - Arin says:
Re-reading my comment, it sounded harsher than I meant. Really, I would highly recommend this as a must-read for anyone new to design (especially web design)! There are a lot of good tips in there.
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:42 pm
8 - Anthony says:
It does make you think about what colors people react to. I know my blog has had mixed reaction to whether or not i have made the pink work.
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:43 pm
9 - Christian James says:
Wonderful article! Simple yet it makes some great points. I do a lot of concert photography and I just wish I could make every lighting director read this article. Sometimes you just need to go back to the basics.
-Chris
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:45 pm
10 - Pat says:
I recommend you cautiously combine Black and red, especially black backgrounds with red letters, if you are targeting a male audience. Many males are colorblind to red and black. the screen will look all black to them with some distortions (your red content).
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:46 pm
11 - smartypants says:
Pat, I’m pretty sure that’s not the way most male’s colorblindness manifests itself… it’s usually an inability to differentiate between red and green… not red and black.
Though perhaps there’s a less common form of color blindness that makes it hard to tell the difference between black and red.
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:49 pm
12 - Mark says:
Good stuff! I’m going for a red color scheme for my next site cause it needs to be attention grabbing
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:50 pm
13 - Tudor says:
I guess a more fundamental question is why do these colours principles seem to work..
There are both psychological and physiological reasons at work here and I want to know more!
Any links?
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:51 pm
14 - Warren says:
smartypants,
Pat is correct people who are red-green colorblind see red as very very dark brown that looks almost black.
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:51 pm
15 - John says:
As someone who is actually colour blind, I can quite definitely say I don’t see certain shades of red as almost-black. Everyone who’s colour blind has slight differences. With me the list of colours I don’t get confused is shorter than list of colours I do smile You need to remember there are different kinds of colur blindness too - here’s a good site that I like to use to explain to people what I actually see : http://www.etre.com/tools/colourblindsimulator/
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:52 pm
16 - Mike J says:
This color schemer has a color blind function, its interactive, try it. http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:55 pm