7 Secrets to Using Text Color in Web Design
Color is a language of its own. It can grab your attention, lure you with information, change your mood, and bring about a variety of emotions. Wix’s free web templates come with so many amazing customization options that talking about text color seems almost ridiculous. However, choosing the right color of text for your website is fundamental, and should come way before moving on to more advanced options.
Text color is as fragile as an element in a painting: it can either create a fuller, richer harmony or turn out crude and upset the fine balance in your page. If you’re about to create a color scheme for your website, or want to improve, here are seven tips for smart text color choices:
Contrast
Let’s start with the most important aspect of choosing the color of your text: readability. To make sure your content can be easily seen and read, you’ll need to create a sharp contrast between the color of the text and your site’s background. The best thing to do is not use the same color scheme for each. The best test is to check that you always have either a light background with dark text or vise versa. This rule also applies when putting text on images. A note for the longer paragraphs: stick with darker text to help your reader focus.
Harmony
Each element you add to your website should match and compliment all other elements. If you chose a light yellow background for your website, you can use a darker color for titles to make them pop but be careful of over dramatic combinations.
Branding
Do you already have a logo or specific emotions you want to convey? That’s great! Let your color choices help you. If you have a “green” company perhaps you want to actually use green and other colors from nature in your design. If you’re selling children’s toys, use vibrant primary colors to show exactly who you are right from the beginning. There are no right or wrong colors so long as the colors you choose work in service of your website’s bigger goals.
Web Design Standards
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The web has already set standards for using text that can give you great insight into your choices. You may recognize these three: If you see grey text on a form it signals something to be filled in, red text indicates an error or missing data and blue underlined text is a link you can click on. Use these standards as your guiding principles and get creative with the rest.
Cultural Norms
Different cultures have different relationships to colors . From national colors to holiday connections, make sure to do your research on the meaning of the colors you want to use for your target audience. For example, did you know red is the color of good luck in China and love in the US? Each color represents something unique depending on where you are in the world. Use what makes sense for you and those who will be visiting your website.
A last and final tip:
no text is too small to pay attention to. Just as you think about your header, pay equal attention to your buttons and footer. It all goes a long way in showing what your site is all about.
By the Wix team
