Colour plays an important role in the design of any website. Colour schemes are often created using a colour wheel, of which there are three main kinds - Monochromatic, Analogous and Complementary.
- Monochromatic
- Analogous
- Complementary
Monochromatic colour schemes use variations in the lightness and
saturation of a single colour, to produce a clean and elegant look.
Analogous colour schemes use adjacent colours from the color wheel.
Typically one colour is used as a dominant colour and two others are used to enrich the scheme.
Complementary colour schemes are made of two opposite colours from
the colour wheel. These tend to look best when a warm colour is matched with a cool one, for example yellow and blue.
However, a more interesting way to create an effective colour scheme is to look at examples from nature. Colours can be selected from photos of plants or wildlife for example, and this will usually result in a great looking colour scheme.
As you can see they work really well. If you have any photos of colour schemes similarly pleasing to the eye, then feel free to include those with the content you provide for any website.
A key consideration for any website is its layout. The main two decisions will be where to put the navigation, and how many columns to include for the main content.
- Example 1
- Example 2
- Example 3
- Example 4
(i) Top navigation, single column
(ii) Top navigation, two columns
(iii) Left hand navigation, single column
(iv) Left hand navigation, two columns
How many columns is entirely up to you - side columns are useful for navigation, or for small business sites can be used to hold common content for every page, such as prominent contact details, or special promotions.
Although people sometimes like the idea of a more interesting font for the main text of a website, this isn't really an option. This is because the font displayed is dependent on the fonts installed on the computer of the person visiting the site rather than any font chosen by the site owner or designer. As a result, it is common practise to use one of a handful of safe fonts that are in common usage. Three of the most common serif and sans serif fonts are shown below.
| Sans Serif Fonts | Serif Fonts | ||
 |
ARIAL This is Arial... |
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GEORGIA This is Georgia... |
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TAHOMA This is Tahoma... |
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TIMES NEW ROMAN This is Times New Roman... |
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VERDANA This is Verdana... |
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COURIER This is Courier... |
Of these, the sans serif fonts are more common, and what we would recommend, primarily due to their clarity and legibility.
Other Fonts
However, there is scope for more interesting fonts to be used in banner images, site navigation, logos or section headings. This is because they can more easily be used within images, that don't have the issue mentioned above. And don't worry - to keep them accessible and search engine friendly, there will be text only alternatives working behind the scenes.
To give you some examples, here are a few of our favourites :
Website Font Links
We have many more fonts available, and there are more still available online (although some do come at a price). Here are a few links if you are looking for more inspiration...
