Color occurs everywhere in nature and impacts our lives daily. For example, when it is cold outside, the colors are white, blue and purple. When it is warm, the colors are yellow, orange and red. This psychology of color can come in handy when designing a website.

Each color in nature has a corresponding emotional impact. Here are some simple examples:

Blue: Serious, reliable, cool, cold, peaceful
Red: Hot, anger, love
Green: Nature, fresh, growth, calming
Yellow: Sunny, Cheerful, bright
Orange: Warm, exciting, energetic
Black: Mysterious, elegant, dark,
White: Clean, fresh, elegant, purity
Purple: Majestic, powerful, romantic

Using Color in Your Designs
If you have a website that is friendly, warm and inviting, you might consider colors that reflect those attributes, such as yellows, oranges or greens. On the other hand, if your website is promoting a serious and informative presence, you may want to lean more toward blues, whites, and greens. If you are branding a mysterious and foreboding site, then black would be the way to go. If your website is promoting a hospital or medical company you want to project a brand that is clean, reliable and sanitary, white and blue would be appropriate.

Color Harmony
A good rule of thumb when choosing colors is to keep your selections to a maximum of three. If you stick to this rule then you are most likely going to have harmony in your design. In some cases you can break this rule but do so with caution.

Some good color website references are:
http://kuler.adobe.com/
http://www.colorjack.com/sphere/
http://www.w3schools.com/Html/html_colors.asp

When it comes to SEO, it is most important for users to find what they are looking for quickly and accurately. That’s pretty much a no-brainer if you’ve been using the internet for a while. But who really thinks about labeling their images for SEO? With all major browsers having a capability to search for images, it is now very important to name your images in a way that will be easy to index and find via any search.

If I was searching for a Dog Jumping, it wouldn’t be wise to name an image something like: img_4484427.jpg.  On the other hand, if the file name was Dog_Jumping.jpg, then I would be much more likely to find it through a search.

Alt tags are another way to add extra oomph to your images. Adding some simple code such as: alt=”Dog Jumping”, might be enough to differentiate you from your competition. It’s all about making relevant content and images more accessible to end users.

I once heard a great oil painter say, “Unity with variety makes great pictures.” My first thought was, “How on earth can you have unity with variety? It seems like a contradiction.” From then on, I started really looking at the world around me, I began to see what he was talking about.

For example, in nature, a row of trees look similar, but still have variety in the branches, leaves and sizes. Clouds on a beautiful day will be off-white against a blue sky, but will have variety in sizes, shapes and distances. Consider the human face, we are used to seeing 2 eyes, 1 nose and 1 mouth, but there are differences that make us distinctly unique.

Lets take a closer look at this concept in a graphic example. Below we have 3 content boxes which represent areas which could possibly link to sections of a website. First of all, notice the similarities of these simple and uninspired boxes. We don’t know what to look at first and may not even be compelled to read the text at all. The boxes have the same shape, fonts, colors, and format. Boring.

Below are the new graphics which have been spiced up a bit with variations in color, font sizes and distances, but still have unity of shape, fonts and effects. We clearly know what to look at first, starting with the orange box labeled “1”. This is the main emphasis of the group. Then, we proceed to look at “2” and “3”.

Another thing to keep in mind when using graphic elements is unity with your website. Notice how I didn’t randomly choose orange, teal, and gray as my new box colors, I picked them because they are specific to the MoreVisibility website and will therefore strengthen branding.

Until next time, look at the world around you and be inspired by the beauty and wonder nature has to offer.