Psychology of Colors
I have been doing a lot of research today into color psychology.
I know, this is boring and repetitive, right? Actually, I find it quite fascinating how many people are printing and reproducing the exact same material and then telling others not to reproduce their work. It's obvious that someone's copying someone else, but hard to tell who. It should be known that I will never reproduce someone elses creative material without attributions being given to them for their intellectual property. Here is a story that seems the most valid and has been labeled as re-printable. I'm imagining they were one of the original authors, but then there are so many that are carbon copies that have "no-reprint" tags to them, it's hard to tell. Anyway, here is the article and additional links will be at the base.
-Enjoy-
Red is the warmest color, passionate and energetic: the color of romance, love and enthusiasm. Red is attention grabbing, alarming or charming: a mixture of paradoxes feelings and sensations. A good web designer understands red and its power: he or she will know where to use this color, how much of red means sales, how much will just drive visitors away. Take a look around and note how red is used on a daily basis: sales tags are red, a red Ferrari is anyone's dream, a red rose is a passionate declaration of love, a red flag is often associated with war... Red is power, means power, inspires and motivates.
As red, orange is warm, happy and full of life. It's the color of fire and light. Orange is usually used for websites related to the food industry, but it could also work for lamp manufacturers and other entrepreneurs from the light and energy areas.
Yellow is a dual color. It's happy and inspiring but many people do associate it with cowardice and jealousy. Use it careful in web design, and never use it for fonts on a white background.
Green means nature, purity and freshness. It symbolizes hope and growth. Usually companies selling herbal products, nutrients and cosmetics use a fresh green ? for example lime green ? to inspire their visitors. World class companies such as Yves Rocher or Garnier employ green a lot in their web design because they sell products based on natural plant extracts. Used in the wrong context, green might have negative connotations. Money is green ? too much green is often associated with greed or poison (Paris Green).
Blue is a already a standard business-to-business color. Navy blue, or dark blue is used for business logos, business suits and so on. Even hospitals and health sites use blue for their design. Light blue symbolizes happiness and Heaven, while some shades of blue are depressing. Use blue carefully for web design.
Violet is an exotic and royal color, associated with wealth, spirituality and meditation. It's rarely used in web design, because it takes real skill to combine with other colors. Web designers use it mostly for ads and banners, as it grabs attention and calls to action.
White is not a color, but the manifestation of all colors as one. White is associated with purity, divinity, modesty and simplicity. For web design white is the ideal choice. However, although in life, white is complete, online it always needs to be completed with other colors.
Finally, black means the absence of white and the absence of all colors. Although, generally speaking, black has negative meanings (death, mourning, sin) it is still a very elegant color and, combined with the right colors it can make a great enhancement to your website. Anyway... you probably use black as the color of the fonts.
A great supporting article from Wynn Wilder; a Website Psychologist and owner of Critical Thinking.
And below is an article that looks like a carbon copy, but didn't want anyone copying them.... Ironic Much
The Meaning and Psychology of Colors
Web Design and the Psychology of Colors
Written by Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Web design is not an easy task, especially if what you need is to create a business website in plain HTML, with a very simple layout, easy to navigate, fast loading and, above all, distinctive. To reach this purpose web designers don't have too many options. Typically all they can do is blend colors harmoniously to create an appealing website that combines attributes of simplicity and logic while providing valuable content. It is therefore important for any designer to know what colors mean and what subtle message hides within every tone.
Red is the warmest color, passionate and energetic: the color of romance, love and enthusiasm. Red is attention grabbing, alarming or charming: a mixture of paradoxes feelings and sensations. A good web designer understands red and its power: he or she will know where to use this color, how much of red means sales, how much will just drive visitors away. Take a look around and note how red is used on a daily basis: sales tags are red, a red Ferrari is anyone's dream, a red rose is a passionate declaration of love, a red flag is often associated with war... Red is power, means power, inspires and motivates.
As red, orange is warm, happy and full of life. It's the color of fire and light. Orange is usually used for websites related to the food industry, but it could also work for lamp manufacturers and other entrepreneurs from the light and energy areas.
Yellow is a dual color. It's happy and inspiring but many people do associate it with cowardice and jealousy. Use it careful in web design, and never use it for fonts on a white background.
Green means nature, purity and freshness. It symbolizes hope and growth. Usually companies selling herbal products, nutrients and cosmetics use a fresh green ? for example lime green ? to inspire their visitors. World class companies such as Yves Rocher or Garnier employ green a lot in their web design because they sell products based on natural plant extracts. Used in the wrong context, green might have negative connotations. Money is green ? too much green is often associated with greed or poison (Paris Green).
Blue is a already a standard business-to-business color. Navy blue, or dark blue is used for business logos, business suits and so on. Even hospitals and health sites use blue for their design. Light blue symbolizes happiness and Heaven, while some shades of blue are depressing. Use blue carefully for web design.
Violet is an exotic and royal color, associated with wealth, spirituality and meditation. It's rarely used in web design, because it takes real skill to combine with other colors. Web designers use it mostly for ads and banners, as it grabs attention and calls to action.
White is not a color, but the manifestation of all colors as one. White is associated with purity, divinity, modesty and simplicity. For web design white is the ideal choice. However, although in life, white is complete, online it always needs to be completed with other colors.
Finally, black means the absence of white and the absence of all colors. Although, generally speaking, black has negative meanings (death, mourning, sin) it is still a very elegant color and, combined with the right colors it can make a great enhancement to your website. Anyway... you probably use black as the color of the fonts.
A great supporting article from Wynn Wilder; a Website Psychologist and owner of Critical Thinking.
And below is an article that looks like a carbon copy, but didn't want anyone copying them.... Ironic Much
The Meaning and Psychology of Colors
This system combines the second and third tiers, with a link to each category on the main page, and multiple items (e.g. stories) on one page. This is perfect for if you have lots of categories, but with not much content in each category. If I tried to set Pegaweb up like this, every tutorial would be on a single "Tutorial Page". It would be about 800k, and about ten miles high. :)
Top-Heavy System:
As long as this doesn't create mass clutter on your main page, this option has all the advantages of two and three tier systems.
The links to each item are on the main page, but are organised into tiers on that page. There will be a fair few links on the main page, but the organisation of the site will be very easy to understand.
This is the system I intend to use when I redesign this site. On the main page, there will be tiers, with links to each individual tutorial, article or resource etc. If you look back up the page, you'll find that this system is very similar to the two-tier system - in effect, it IS a two-tier system.
The moral of the story is - design your websites to be two-tiered. Choose the bottom-heavy or top-heavy systems as necessary. Unless your site is gigantic, it's possible to keep your site two-tiered, especially by using the bottom-heavy system and creating/removing categories, to balance the clutter between your main page and the rest of the site.
This is a reposting of a 2006 article by 
Every single color that you can think of can be used on the internet these days, which means that picking the right colors can be a mammoth task. Here is a swift summary of how some colors can provoke certain reactions.
Green is linked with nature, peace and jealousy. It is also a truly relaxing color and is perfect to use for a relaxing effect. The color white stirs up feelings of purity, simplicity, emptiness and innocence. If used as the main color of a site, it creates a clean and simple feel.
Blue is most commonly associated with business sites as it's a strong color that's associated with confidence, coldness, depression, water and peace. The color blue is linked with confidence, loyalty and coolness. It's the best-known color in the world and it's used by many companies to create a feeling of strength & confidence( plus, blue and orange seem to be the Naperville and Chicago favored colors).
Black is linked to feelings of mystery and refinement. For more detail go to: www.instant-video-streamer.com. An extremely popular color in design and photo web sites, it can be used effectively to contrast and liven up other colors. Green is linked to organic, nature and relaxation. The paler end of the green spectrum can be used to give a site a relaxed feel.
Grey can be associated with respect, humility, decay and boredom. It's used a lot to form shiny gradients in website design to give a professional, ordinary feel to a site. Orange is strongly associated with spirituality and healing. It's the color that symbolizes Buddhism and it has a calming energy about it. It's a bold color that is not as lively as yellow but not as deep as red.
Darker shades of purple can be very deep and luscious. It is linked to royalty, spirituality, arrogance and luxury. Lighter shades can represent romance and delicacy. It's a color that's not really used much on sites. Full of energy, vibrancy and stimulation, orange is a fantastic color to use in designing web-sites. It is used to bring youthfulness to a design.
Color's role is not just to make a website look good; it can encourage feelings & emotions from the audience. In the Chicago and Naperville areas, this can be especially important because of how emotionally driven local customers can be. Choosing colors that annoy the end user can have damaging effects on your website, while cleverly selecting can mean that the website meets user expectation.
