How to Choose Your Website’s Colors

You probably recall the color wheel from elementary school art class. I just shuffled around in a drawer and found the one I was given way back then. I’m not sure why I kept it…but there it is, cardboard and battered, having weathered many a geographic move.

If you’re contemplating a website or already have one and could use a refresher on selecting a color scheme, you can be a little more high-tech with your color wheel these days. Here are four good, free web resources:

Ye Olde Colour Theory: A primer on complimentary, analagous and triad colors. Be sure to scroll down far enough to read the section, “Using color to create rhythm.”

Colour Scheme Chooser: Choose a base color you think you want, then use this online tool to generate color schemes around that base. The tool provides html code (to use in your web design software) for the recommended colors.

Color Scheme Generator: A similar tool to the Colour Scheme Chooser, but with a different interface. The authors call it an online generator of color schemes and palettes to create “good-looking and well balanced and harmonic web pages.”

Web Color Schemes: A list of color schemes used by well known and not so well known websites. You can click to see how those schemes actually look on a blog or other website.