Color and Design on the Web

I found a number of web sites, which will help you design a better web site. This goes beyond HTML or CSS. I'm talking strickly Color.

Picking a color scheme

First you have to know a little bit about color. I've been painting for years so I know the theory behind color and I think I know what looks good, yet I've been wrong before. If you need a good overview of color theory here's a good web site A Guide To Top Color Combinations In Web Design

One thing to note is the days of 'Web Safe Colors' is over. You can now safely use any color you want. The bad news is colors are still specified by their Hexidecimal code. Instead of counting: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 etc. they count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 10 This gets you more colors with fewer characters but its confusing especially as the color is specified with three sets of two charactors for the three additive colors: red green blue in this format #rrggbb.

When I was looking for some ideas I found a number of interesting sites which can make the selection process simplier.

A couple of quick tools I've used are:

1. Color Blender was the first web site I used. It's a good tool but I think it could use some work as to giving a wider range of pallet types.
2. Color Lovers has an interesting idea, let designers put pallets together and have other designers/ viewers vote on them. When I was thinking about my own web site I picked out a couple pallets I thought might work. I didn't use any of them but anyway...
1. sleep on the floor
2. old becomes new
3. simple and sweet
4. elusive gesture
5. psuedo blues
6. oceanic 815
3. 4096 Color Wheel will help you fine tune your colors particularly if you're having trouble getting to display properly. You can also download the files and use it off-line!
4. Color Scheme 2 is everything Color Blender should have been but isn't. Very easy to use and you can try out different pallet variations based on the type of color model you are using. This you decided based on the type of web site: commercial, personal, fun, etc.
5. Color Blender does want it says, it creates a set number of colors between two colors you specify.
6. I Like Your Colors is a fun site that is also useful. Type in the address for any web page and it will show you what colors are used on that site. I find it's a quick way to get a list of colors I've used.
7. Color Combos seems similar to Color Lovers, but not as good.
8. EasyRGB Search for colors complements to your RGB values. Create color harmonies, combinations and themes. From your main (or background) color select trim and accents tones. Also Calibration
9. Color Tool 2.0.8 Alpha Online color mixer tool with lots of controls.
10. Texture Library A short collection of textures. You don't have to use colors, you can use a repeating background. I have found this rarely looks very good.