Color Aesthetics for the Web
By Lynda Weinman
Once the Web-publishing industry surpasses all of its technical hurdles, the question of how to design the look and feel of content will still remain. The technocentric concerns of browser compatibility, HTML specs, and extending HTML may be hiding the deeper concern of determining what constitutes compelling content, and how to present it in a visually appealing manner.
The Web is an immature medium; we are really all newbies. Experienced designers trained in art, color, composition, typography, digital imaging tools, and multimedia definitely have an edge over programmers and hobbyists who are just entering the field, but at the heart of that advantage are timeless design principles that anyone can learn.
This month, I'll examine the effective use of color, covering color principles that might be unfamiliar to the "average" Web publisher.
Like most art and design, color preferences enter the realm of extremely subjective territory. My favorite color might be green, but my client might love purple. Some cultures think black is gloomy, while others wear black wedding dresses. Making color look good is less about which color you pick and more about other issues such as intensity, contrast, and saturation.
When I wrote my first book a few years ago, my husband Bruce, a painter and illustrator, helped me identify the "browser-safe" palette, also known as the 216 color cube, the Web palette, and the Netscape palette. Once we had determined which colors wouldn't dither or shift unexpectedly in the browser window, we moved on and attempted to organize the 216 colors in useful ways for artists and Web publishers.
