When daylight savings time approaches and gone are the long stretches of sunlight that I love, I start to feel blue. [If you wonder about this seasonal shift which disrupts so many family routines twice a year, I found Who New? A Brief History of Daylight Saving Time by David PreRau very entertaining.]
But I digress, the issue at hand is color and mood. While an unknown person said, "Attitude is the mind's paintbrush, it can color any situation," I still seek color, like a moth to flame.
When I used to be in publishing I was told "book covers should never be yellow". I am not sure why this true. Since I have been enjoying the yellow that we have been using in some of our new projects, I was curious if any such pronouncement about yellow websites existed. I found onextrapixel.com's Anatomy of Colors in Web Design: Yellow and Sunshine Feel (one of a series) great both for its definitions as well as examples of yellow color, tinted, filled websites.
Hurrah, all colors are good! But, choosing a color palette I have found one of the most difficult choices for people to make. Logo's are tough, but once a palette is chosen that is the color of your business. And, people react so strongly to colors. We had one client who was almost violent when a blue scheme was presented. It was thought to be too cold and icy. Hot, fiery red was preferred. We ended up in the yellow, orange and brown spectrum. Some useful sites on color palettes: Color Theory Tutorial by Worqx,ColorCombos.com, and colourLovers.com.
The psychology of color is most profound in the dark days of winter. It is not just finding the button on the web pages anymore it has real emotional impact. If you are interested,Kendra Cherry's article, Color Psychology, breaks it all down for you.
Viva technicolor--it was not long ago that tv and film were black and white--and remember the green screen!
