Colors And Their Implications

[Datura]

No specific program needed.

Colors can have a profound influence on how you feel, what you like, what you do not like. Colors are also sales tools.

When you use colors correctly, you can give very distinct subliminal messages that you want to convey, you can influence people's feelings toward whatever it is you are trying to sell. I will show you a limited list of what you can imply with colors. That is part of the job of a site designer: to pull the visitor of that site in, to have him have the feelings that you want him to have. That might convince a person to buy a product, read an article, play or hold their attention. Colors are of course only a part of the whole, but an important one.

For the people who can not see colors, it would be nice to convert colors into greyscale before you decide which colors to use. Contrast is an important part as well, and by seeing what a value of a color is, you can choose the colors knowing that that person can enjoy the site as well.

I will not give you specific numbers for the colors, just the idea how to choose a certain combination of types of colors for a particular feel. Experiment and see if you can create your own palette for a particular emotion or sales pitch.

To make a palette more exciting, you can always bring in a color from another feel/mood palette. A contrast to the all over appearance. The small stripe on the bottom of each palette is an example.



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[Datura]

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[electroskan.com]

Wow!! Cool Ulrike.

[Datura]

Thanks Ram. Colors are a big passion of mine.

[electroskan.com]

....definitely can see that

[ozone88]

ha ha Datura your a legend.

I've been staring at this training pack I'm editing for ages wondering why it doesn't look right.

[Datura]

What training pack? What is it about? Maybe I can give you a hand?

[ozone88]

What training pack? What is it about? Maybe I can give you a hand?

I edit and write allot of training material for the company I work for (mostly product and safety information on product) the author had used a standard training module format (which is very boring mono blue shades, I have to use it) but they had added a cool bright green (obivously thought the the training needed some jazzing up).

I for the life of me couldn't figure out why the pack didn't look "balanced" (for want of a better word). I must of read it 100's of time thinking that their was something wrong with the text.

But when I looked at ths thread the light bulb went on.
Looked fine when I took out the stupid green.

Just goes to show that sometimes you can't see for looking

[Datura]

Isn't it interesting? I am also often just amazed how one slight shift in color can totally change something.. I am glad you figured it out

Have you chosen a different color instead of the green or stayed with just the blues?

[ozone88]

I have to stay with the blues (It's one of those company branding things your not allowed to mess with).

One of these days when I get the time, I'll go to the managers witha new template design, something that doesn't encourage people to fall asleep (the all blues really do make it the worse template I've ever worked with, not one contrast colour on the page at all, very boring).

I'm amazed that colour is so naturally apart of how we see things and perceive things that at first I actually thought there was something wrong with the text not the colour.

[Datura]

We take color for granted, and we often forget how very important it is in all out lives. It is not essential of course, a blind or color blind person lives without it, but it adds such a richness that those people can never experience.

I hope you can convince your higher ups of this, they probably will only give you a blank sort of look. I have noticed that a lot, many men are very uncomfortable around color. I work in interior design sometimes, and it is just amazing how guys walk away from making decisions about colors.

But I might be wrong about the people you work with, hopefully I am

[ozone88]

One of my pet subjects is non-verbal communication like body language, colour and shape. l've tried to study the subject as much as I can, and generally speaking most in the field clearly state that men do not see the colour range that women do. But that women don't see movement as well as men.

It has been theorised that the difference was developed when the human race was still a hunter/gather society. When you think about it does seem to make sense, some wild fruit are poisonous when not ripe but fine when they are deciding what is a safe colour and unsafe colour of the fruit become very important. But colour isn't important when your hunting you need to see the movement of your prey animal not what colour it is.

Okay I'll stop now, I've always had a passion for the subject and have a tendency to get carried away.

[Datura]

I have that passion as well, and I can see how this theory of the development of male and female could be at the root of this difference in appreciation of colors. But then there are so many exceptions.

I think we just really do not know. It might also be that boys and girls are raised differently from the get go, emphasis are different in teaching a male or female child.

I can go on forever on subjects like this as well, and it is good to talk about these things, only to clear our own minds about the possibilities and keep our thinking open.

[LJK]

Off Topic:

Saw an "Antiques Roadshow" recently a book from the early 1800's - this fellow had a small series printed-up: because of the THOUSANDS of color swatches he'd painted by hand and glued inside. He was trying to really get a guide for color naming...

I love obsessive personalities ;-) Wish I could remember his name!

[Datura]

Off Topic:

Saw an "Antiques Roadshow" recently a book from the early 1800's - this fellow had a small series printed-up: because of the THOUSANDS of color swatches he'd painted by hand and glued inside. He was trying to really get a guide for color naming...

I love obsessive personalities ;-) Wish I could remember his name!

That does sound like a very interesting book. I wonder how true the colors stayed over this long timespan.

[Wai]

very nice explanation of each color impression

[Datura]

very nice explanation of each color impression

Thank you Wai. It would be a good exercise to take a theme of your own and try to put this theme into color, until you say: *Yes, that is what I tried to say*. You will be surprised how consistent the palette will look.

[Dark Tranquility]

Nice Ulrike! very nice

[RetroMetro/Steve]

Check out kuler.adobe.com ...

[Datura]

Check out kuler.adobe.com ...

Yes, that is a mighty fine site.

[JimmyP]

Thanks for this Datura...!!! Really helpful. I would normally dive into to website creation without thinking about the meaning of colors. Things like this are great!

I think my favorite color scheme is the top line of 'warmth'!

[Datura]

Thanks for this Datura...!!! Really helpful. I would normally dive into to website creation without thinking about the meaning of colors. Things like this are great!

I think my favorite color scheme is the top line of 'warmth'!

Thank you Jimmy

It is interesting how most people tend to have favorite color ways. I think we are very much influenced about likes and dislikes by where we live.

When I still lived in Germany, the palette that I favored was very different from what I like in my daily life now. Climate plays a big part in it.

But in a way that points out how different the choices should be for different themes

[gasonline]

Really helpful.
I think like your, we see the colors according to where we lived, the light is important.
You do not use any tool to choose the colors?

Thanks.

[Datura]

Really helpful.
I think like your, we see the colors according to where we lived, the light is important.
You do not use any tool to choose the colors?

Thanks.

When I mentioned above that no specific tool is needed, I meant that any software that works with colors can be used, it does not matter which one it is.

I choose the tools that are appropriate. For the web it is Photoshop, for the real life it is the paints artists use, like oil, acrylic, silk dyes. Fabrics in interior design etc.

[lockettpots]

Interesting thread

When I was taking my Art and Design degree course many years ago. My dissertation was about exploring the relationship between colour ways and music.

I arrived finally at a point where I was painting compositions based upon musical chords and it really was amazing to see how differently people reacted to compositions based upon major chords to compositions based on minor chords etc.

John