Black

Although black often has negative connotations such as death and evil, it can also be a color of power, elegance, and strength, depending on how it’s used. If you’re considering using a particular color and are wondering what the associations are for that color, just ask yourself, “What are the first three things that come to mind when I think about this color?” When I think about black, for instance, I think about Johnny Cash, tuxedos, and Batman. When I think about Johnny Cash, his dark clothing, deep voice, and sorrowful songs give a tangible meaning to the mental associations I perceive between the man and the color. If you analyze your top three color associations this way, you’re bound to hit some common chords that other people share in regards to your color choices.

Figure 2.7: Black, a color that represents power, elegance, and in this case, exorbitance

Even though color psychology does play a role in the way a visitor may see a site that you design, keep in mind that there is no wrong color to use. While psychological reasoning may help get your palette started, the success of a color scheme depends on the harmony that exists between all the colors chosen. To achieve this harmony, we’ll need to keep a few other attributes of color in mind.

White

When people think “clean,” they think of white. White is considered to be the color of perfection, light, and purity. This is why crisp white sheets are used in detergent commercials and why a bride wears a white dress on her wedding day. We often overlook these associations because of the default use of white as a background color, but they persist nonetheless. To get an idea of how ingrained the meaning of white is in our culture, just read the poem Design by Robert Frost. In it, Frost symbolically contradicts those associations by using white to represent death and darkness. Using colors in unexpected ways can be a good way to make a bold statement.

Purple

Historically, the color purple has been associated with royalty and power. The secret behind purple’s prestigious past has to do with the difficulty of producing the dye needed to create purple garments. To this day, purple still represents wealth and extravagance. That extravagance is carried over into nature. Purple is most often connected with lowers, gemstones, and sunsets, which, when you consider Figure 2.6, is really no wonder. If you’re trying to create a web site design that stands out from the crowd, think about using a rich shade of purple. According to CSS Zen Garden’s Design category index, purple is by far the least commonly used color.

Figure 2.6: Birds lying in front of a purple sunset

Blue

When I was a kid, my favorite color was blue. Not just any blue, but Crayola Crayon cerulean blue, shown in Figure 2.5. Yeah, I was a weird kid. On the touchy-feely level, blue symbolizes openness, intelligence, and faith. Physiologically, blue has been found to calm people down, but it can also reduce appetite. This effect is probably due in part to the rarity of blue in real food. Aside from blueberries, how many naturally blue foods can you count? Blue, it would seem, is just not a part of Nature’s appetite-inducing palette, so it’s not a great choice for promoting food products. Blue is sometimes seen as a symbol of bad luck and trouble. This emotional color connection is evident in blues music and in the paintings of Picasso’s depression-induced Blue Period. It’s not all about unnatural food colors and downtrodden forms of art, though—blue also has universal appeal because of its association with the sky and the sea. This visual connection with water, sky, and air makes blue an obvious choice for web sites associated with airlines, air conditioning, pool liters, and cruises. Have you ever noticed that blue is the primary color in the logos of IBM, Dell, HP, and Microsoft? The reason for this is that blue also conveys a sense of stability and clarity of purpose ... that is, until you’ve experienced the blue screen of death!

Figure 2.5: There’s just nothing like cerulean

Green

Green is associated with nature. It is a very soothing color that symbolizes growth, freshness, and hope. It’s much easier on the eyes, and far less active, than yellow, orange, or red. Although many web site designs that use green appeal to visitors’ sense of nature, green is a very versatile color. When bright green is set against a black background, it really pops, and gives the design a tetchy feel. For me, it brings back memories of my first computer, a trusty old Apple IIe, the display of which is shown in Figure 2.4.