We learned in Color Psychology: How Colors Influence People that people tend to associate colors with emotions. By studying color psychology, you will know what emotions can certain colors evoke. Use this as an opportunity to know how you will be able to attract your audience.

When it comes to our work, everyone has favorite colors that we will always keep on choosing. However, that isn’t always the case when you have a website. As a content creator, you should know what is the right color scheme for your website. You have to make sure that the color scheme you will choose fits your brand.

In this digital age, people love seeing content – whether it be in a form of video or article. Still, you have to capture their attention first before they even view your content. What is the best way to capture their attention? Color scheme. By choosing the perfect color scheme, you will be attracting a lot of people.

If you still don’t know how to choose the right color scheme for your website, here are some tips that will help you:

• UNDERSTAND HOW COLORS INFLUENCE EMOTIONS

Like I said, every color evokes certain emotion. You have to make sure that the color you are choosing for your website is appealing to your target audience. If you are targeting female audience, it would be ideal to use pink since the color represents femininity. You can learn more about color meanings by reading Color Psychology: Understanding The Meanings of Colors.

• BROWSE FOR IMAGE INSPIRATIONS

Pinterest is the best place to look for inspiration. You can browse through thousands of images until you find something that inspires you. Tip: Pin 10-20 images until you see a pattern in which colors you are particularly drawn to. Aside from Pinterest, you can also check out websites that offer royalty-free images for more inspiration. If you don’t know anything about royalty-free images, check out What Are Royalty-Free Images and Where to Get Them.

• CHECK OUT SIMILAR WEBSITES

It is not a bad thing to check similar websites as yours and take inspiration. There are lots of websites you can take inspiration from but make sure you aren’t completely copying a certain website. You have to be authentic so that your audience will trust you.

• CHOOSE 4-6 COLORS

When creating a color scheme for your website, you don’t want to go overboard. Black and white are not counted unless they are predominant colors in your theme. You should choose two dark colors, two light colors, one bold and/or contrast color, and one neutral color.

• USE AN ONLINE COLOR PALETTE GENERATOR

If you are still unsure about what colors to choose from, you can use an online color palette generator. Remember: do not focus on your favorite colors. Although, you can use them as inspiration to further expand your choices. You can use ColourLovers. Kuler, and Pictaculous to help you generate color palettes for your website.

Finding the right color scheme for your blog can seem like an intimidating process but it will surely pay off. If you choose the right color scheme that’s designed your target audience, you’ve already winning. Next, we will discuss about everything you need to know about typography.

Last time, we discussed about the influence of colors and some color meanings. Today, we will talk about more color meanings and what significance it has in our lives. For every person around the world, colors hold significance. Aside from the fact that colors influence people, colors also have religious and cultural meanings. Furthermore, colors can also help you in website design.

Colors influence our cognitive skills, modify our decision-making, and affect our moods. In web design, color plays a vital role in how your brand can be noticed by people. Studying the meanings of color can help you attract and connect with your target audience. Color psychology is one way to create a powerful brand.

Choosing the right colors for your brand is very important and it can make a difference. By choosing the colors that best fits your image, you are influencing the way your audience perceive your brand. This is why understanding color psychology is very useful.

BLACK

In color psychology, black has the meaning of mystery, power, elegance, and sophistication. The color can also evoke emotions such as sadness and anger. Since it is an easy color to read, black is also a popular color for text.

Retailers like Chanel and Nike use black in their logos. This is to maintain a sophisticated, consistent look.

GREEN

In color psychology, green is highly connected to nature and money. Some of the positive color meanings for the color are growth, fertility, health, and generosity. Although, green also carries some negative connotations such as envy. The color is perfect for brands with great vision.

Brands like Acer, Lacoste, and Starbucks incorporated the color green in their logos. These brands aim to bring freshness and promote relaxation.

ORANGE

According to color psychology, orange represents creativity, adventure, enthusiasm, success, and balance. Orange is an alluring color but it is not as authoritative as the color red. When you use orange, you are adding fun to your website or brand. In web design, they use the color in areas where they want to draw attention too.

Some famous logos like Nickelodeon and Soundcloud uses orange. It is a perfect color for the brands since both brands spark creativity and enthusiasm.

PINK

In color psychology, the color pink means femininity, playfulness, immaturity and unconditional love. When you are serving a predominantly female audience, pink is a popular color you can incorporate with your brand. It is seen as a calming, non-threatening color. It is also linked to innocence, hope, and optimism.

Since pink means femininity, it’s no surprise that famous brands like Victoria’s Secret and Barbie use the color laboriously.

PURPLE

When it comes to color psychology, purple means power, nobility, luxury, wisdom, and spirituality. Since ancient times, purple has also been a traditional royal color. However, avoid using purple too much because it can cause feelings of frustration. It could also convey arrogance if used excessively.

Famous brands like Cadbury and Hallmark uses purple in their logos. This is to help their audience associate their brand with feelings of luxury.

Next, we will discuss about essential tips in choosing the right color scheme for your website.

We might not be aware of it but colors can actually influence our minds. Color psychology is about how our minds discern what it visualizes. Although there isn’t much research about color psychology, it is still one of the most interesting topics to talk about.

Color meanings can influence the reason why we prefer particular colors over others. Colors can also influence our minds when it comes to decision-making. You might ask, does the color of a symbol make us more inclined to click on it? The answer is yes.

Color psychology has also become an important aspect in web design and marketing. Colors stimulate feelings and emotions. You have to know how certain colors affect people. By knowing this, you can get people to see what you want them to see. You will also be able to influence them by using the appropriate colors. The choice of colors can help people determine what is relevant.

If you don’t know anything about colors yet, I suggest you read about Color Theory to know the basics about colors. Moving on, we will try to see what human emotions can be stimulated by using certain colors.

RED

In color psychology, red is the most intense color and it can stimulate the strongest emotions like anger, passion, and love. It attracts more attention than any other color. You might also want to use it moderately as it also signifies danger. It is said to improve human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure.

Brands like Coca-Cola and YouTube made the color red iconic. I’ve mentioned above that it improves human metabolism, this is probably why Coca-Cola uses it. When it comes to YouTube, they use red because it invokes excitement to the viewers.

YELLOW

According to color psychology, yellow evokes feelings of happiness, positivity, optimism, and summer. At the same time, it can also stimulate feelings of deceit and warning. When used too much, yellow may have a unpleasant effect on people. The color yellow stimulates cheerfulness, awakens mental activity, and generates muscle energy.

Brands like Ferrari and IKEA use yellow in their branding. The luxury brand, Ferrari, is associated with this feeling of happiness, and a carefree lifestyle. This is probably why many people dream of driving a Ferrari. On the other hand, IKEA uses yellow because buying furniture can signify new beginnings like moving out for the first time or buying a new house. With new beginnings, you tend to experience happiness and optimism.

BLUE

In color psychology, blue is closely tied to the sea and the sky. When you integrate the the color into your branding, your audience will experience feelings of stability, harmony, peace, calm and trust. On the other side, blue also have negative color meanings such as depression and a sense of coldness. The color blue is most commonly used by tech brands like Facebook and Twitter. Other brands like Oral B also uses the color blue to help people correlate the brand with a quality product.

Next, I will talk more about other color meanings in Color Psychology.

Last time, I discussed about more essential writing tips for blogging. Today, we will talk about one of the things we primarily learn about in school – which are colors. In grade school, we learned about the basic primary colors and how they blend. However, that is just a small part of an even bigger field known as the color theory.

What is Color Theory?

When it comes to visual arts, color theory is basically the art and science of using colors. It can help explain how colors match and contrast each other. and how humans perceive colors. In this theory, colors are classified into three groups: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

According to a study, people decide in 90 seconds or less if they like a product or not. About 90% of that decision is solely based on color. This is why it’s very important that a part of your branding must focus on color.

What are Primary Colors?

As I’ve mentioned, colors are classified into three groups. When mixed, primary colors can produce a wide spectrum of colors. We are more familiar with red, yellow, and blue (RYB) model. When we were in grade school, these are the colors that helped us acquire basic art skills. Another primary set of colors is cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY). Just like RYB, the CMY primaries are also considered as a subtractive color model. When these colors absorb parts of the visible spectrum, they can form new colors. The third group is the red, green, and blue (RGB) system. Unlike the previous two, the RGB system is an additive model. This model is most commonly seen on computer and television screens.

What are Secondary and Tertiary Colors?

When you use equal amounts of primary colors, you get green, orange, and purple as secondary colors. On the other hand, tertiary colors are formed when you mix both primary and secondary colors. Mixing primary and secondary colors leads to many different shades of a particular color. Some examples are: yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple.

Color Harmony

When mixing colors, it should be pleasing to the eyes. This is why color harmony is important in visual arts as it gives off a sense of order. It also creates a balance in the visual experience that captivates the viewers. When something is not harmonious, it can become dull or disorganized. When it comes to color harmony, you can choose a lot of schemes.

A prime example is based on analogous colors. This scheme uses colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. When it comes to business, using analogous color schemes can definitely attract consumers.

The second scheme is based on complementary colors which are colors that can be found opposite to each other on the color wheel. When you use complementary colors, there will be a sharp contrast between colors so be careful not to overuse them as it can get annoying.

The third color scheme is based on triadic colors. This color scheme uses colors that are fairly spaced around the color wheel. When you use the triadic color scheme, you can simultaneously create visual contrast and harmony.

If you need a tool that will help you understand color harmony better, you can use Adobe Color. It is a really helpful tool so you won’t end up mixing the wrong colors. Now that we’ve discussed all about color theory, I will talk about Color Psychology next.

Previously on Essential Writing Tips For Blogging, I shared five writing tips that are essential to blogging. If you are starting a blog, you don’t have to enroll in writing classes to become a better writer. You can actually learn online! There are a lot of tips and techniques you can search online. Today, I will share MORE writing tips that will give you a boost in your blogging journey.

Know Your Audience

It is important to know who your audience are. By taking the time to know your audience better, you will be able to create amazing blog content for them. Make sure your posts are relevant to your audience. Don’t be afraid to ask what they would like to see on your blog. Focus on ideas that will pique your readers’ interest.

A great way to know your audience is to interact with them through social media. As a way of connecting directly with your readers, you can also respond to blog comments. This will also help boost your engagements.

Be Realistic

When it comes to blogging, you should set realistic goals. For example, you do not have to post daily blogs if you know you can’t. Since you know your schedule better than anyone else, you should follow it diligently. Instead of trying to post every day, you can try to set a specific day when you’re going to post so that you will become consistent. It is also ideal to have an editorial calendar with you so that you can be able to plan ahead and track your progress. Make sure you aren’t being too hard on yourself because you will only burn out yourself in the process.

Don’t Avoid Trying Out New Things

Never be afraid to try out new things. If you take risks from time to time, you are actually letting your blog evolve. You should be open to new ideas in order for you to gain experience and become better. Do not let yourself feel restricted and instead research more about what else you can do with your blog. Aside from your usual blog posts, you can also invite over some guest bloggers for a breath of fresh air. It is always a great idea to collaborate with someone, and if you are running out of ideas, you can also refer to Amazing Content Ideas for Your Blog!

Take A Break

If you’re too tired to blog or you don’t have the will to write, it is okay to take a break. When you are taking a break, don’t think like you’re running away from your responsibilities. Instead, think of it as a boost that will help you become more focused and have clearer vision of what you would like to write. Breaks help you see overlooked errors so that you can correct them. By taking breaks from time to time, you regain energy and enthusiasm.

Be Yourself and Have Fun

Your readers will appreciate you more if you are being yourself. Always be honest with your thoughts. As you go along, blogging shouldn’t feel like a chore that you don’t want to finish. Do not think negative and instead look forward to blogging every day!

Next, I will discuss about Color Theory.