Choosing Colours
When selecting a colour scheme, you should take into consideration the effect that colours have. All colours evoke a certain feeling or mood - and this may well determine whether that colour is appropriate for use on your website.
Blue is the most popular colour for professional and corporate websites. It has a calming effect, and evokes feelings of stability and competency. It is also most people's favourite colour.
Red and orange are vibrant, high-energy colours. They are particularly well suited to websites for children, or very exciting dynamic websites. They also work well as highlight colours.
Green is a calming colour, reminiscent of the outdoors. It has a very peaceful effect, although bright shades of green such as lime green are more energising, and once again are excellent as highlight colours.
Different colours work together in different ways. Using a colour wheel, you can determine which colours complement the main colour you have chosen, and use those to highlight headings and links for example.
Remember to keep your website legible - always use a font colour that contrasts with the background so that the words are easy to read. Dark text on a light background is the most common, but very light text on a dark background is also easy to read.
You can create pleasing colour schemes online with these tools: