Color is linked with our own personalities. Not only does every color have its own personality, but our personalities and preferences affect how we perceive colors.

Color Scheme - The first question to ask yourself is this: What color scheme do I see the main subject of this website as being? Sometimes the subject of the website chooses the colors for you. For insance, in designing the high school band website, only the school colors would do! These colors are orange and black and not necessarily the colors I would chooe personally, which bring up a good point. If you are designing a website for your own personal use, you have total creative control on which color scheme you choose. But, if you are designing a website for a school, business, etc., the color scheme is dictated by their needs and not your own.

Color Associations - Below is a color chart indicating some common associations with color. Of course, different cultures will have different connotations for color; it is not an exact science in this context! Take a look and think what each color might mean to you from your experiences and memories. This knowledge will perhaps aid in directing you to the best possible color scheme for your website.

color table

Red	strength, boldness, excitement, determination, desire, courage
Orange	enthusiasm, cheerfulness, affordability, stimulation, creativty
Yellow	comfort, liveliness, intellect, happiness, energy
Green	durability, reliability, safety, honesty, harmony, freshness
Blue	depth, stability, professionalism, loyalty, reliability, honor, trust
Purple	power, nobility, luxury, mystery, royalty, elegance, magic
Gray	conservatism, traditionalism, intelligence, seriousness
Brown	endurance, relaxing, confident, casual, reassuring, earthy
Black	elegance, sophistication, formality, strength, mystery
White	cleanliness, purity, newness, virginity, peace, innocence, simplicity

Learn more about colors and how they affect us:

Psychology and color
Choose colors that fit together
Straight forward information on colors

Pictures and Formatting - We have all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. The use of pictures on a website an be a great benefit. Pictures help to convey a certain mood or tone of a website and can enhance the content and keep users on your site.

See a tutorial on picture formats.

Use Sparingly - It is important that the use of pictures is not overdone. Too many pictures is the same a too many anything--clutter and distraction. Keep in miind that it is important to use pictures to the website's advantage and help enhance the information, not detract from it.

Picture Gallery - If you need to post pictures on a website, perhaps of a signifigant event, consider dedicating an entire page for this purpose by creating a picture gallery page.

Click here to see an example of a web page dedicated to a picture gallery of various events.