What color is the news? How to pick the right colors for your site
Monday, March 31, 2008
Red is the color of power and blue is the color of trust. So it should come as no surprise that many popular online news sites incorporate either color in their design and logos. Here are a few side-by-side:
The color choice is no accident: according to several articles on color psychology, red is associated with energy, strength, power, danger, action and adventure. It is also easier to spot compared to other colors, hence its use in many street signs. Blue is associated with trustworthiness, seriousness, power and professionalism.
Picking the right color for a website or for online graphics can be a tough decision: the right color can elicit a natural emotion or reaction from the user. Black may indicate somberness or seriousness while yellow can evoke happiness and joy.
Do you know the difference between lavender and mauve? How about turquoise and cyan? There are so many colors in the spectrum that just identifying them can be daunting. With this interactive color namer or by using useful sites like ColourLovers, you'll be able to tell that the Los Angeles Times uses Prussian blue for its links and that the trademark Bloomberg orange is also known as golden eye.
For help in choosing the perfect colors to complement your site's existing scheme, visit Vandelay Website Design and Web Design Ledger for comprehensive lists of color-related resources.
Also on 10,000 Words:
• How to select the right font every time
• How to design for a computer other than your own
• Multimedia Picker: Choose the right medium for your message
The color choice is no accident: according to several articles on color psychology, red is associated with energy, strength, power, danger, action and adventure. It is also easier to spot compared to other colors, hence its use in many street signs. Blue is associated with trustworthiness, seriousness, power and professionalism.
Picking the right color for a website or for online graphics can be a tough decision: the right color can elicit a natural emotion or reaction from the user. Black may indicate somberness or seriousness while yellow can evoke happiness and joy.
Do you know the difference between lavender and mauve? How about turquoise and cyan? There are so many colors in the spectrum that just identifying them can be daunting. With this interactive color namer or by using useful sites like ColourLovers, you'll be able to tell that the Los Angeles Times uses Prussian blue for its links and that the trademark Bloomberg orange is also known as golden eye.
For help in choosing the perfect colors to complement your site's existing scheme, visit Vandelay Website Design and Web Design Ledger for comprehensive lists of color-related resources.
Also on 10,000 Words:
• How to select the right font every time
• How to design for a computer other than your own
• Multimedia Picker: Choose the right medium for your message
Labels: design
6 Comments
Mark S. Luckie Says:
To separate the blog from the hundreds of others using red and blue.
Rereading the color psychology article, orange is considered an "energetic" color that creates "feelings of excitement, enthusiasm, and warmth" and is "often used to draw attention." So maybe there's more to the color choice than I initially thought.
Rereading the color psychology article, orange is considered an "energetic" color that creates "feelings of excitement, enthusiasm, and warmth" and is "often used to draw attention." So maybe there's more to the color choice than I initially thought.
Damon Says:
You left out a significant factor in your color spectrum: local TV news web templates.
I've done some judging for the AP in competitions, and mid and small market TV stations (which factor in many areas where no significant rural or small town newspaper site has the same degree of heft) are heavily reliant on the network affiliate pre-set templates and color schemes, with some modifications.
With the exception of Fox affiliates, most local TV sites I studied while judging are dominant electric blue, that royal "television" blue. The websites themselves appear to be more influenced by styles and swooshes of local news graphics than web graphics.
But it is odd to see your color spectrum so profoundly red-shifted, while the vast majority of local TV news sites are blue blue blue, electric blue, swooshy blue, TV blue.
I've done some judging for the AP in competitions, and mid and small market TV stations (which factor in many areas where no significant rural or small town newspaper site has the same degree of heft) are heavily reliant on the network affiliate pre-set templates and color schemes, with some modifications.
With the exception of Fox affiliates, most local TV sites I studied while judging are dominant electric blue, that royal "television" blue. The websites themselves appear to be more influenced by styles and swooshes of local news graphics than web graphics.
But it is odd to see your color spectrum so profoundly red-shifted, while the vast majority of local TV news sites are blue blue blue, electric blue, swooshy blue, TV blue.
Mark S. Luckie Says:
Damon - there were no local television sites included in the list. The color spectrum is a random sampling of popular online newspapers and cable news networks and not meant to be a representative of all news sites.
Given your observation that red and blue are the dominant colour choices, why is the 10,000 words logo/header orange?
June 10, 2009 8:13 AM