Colour Schemes
Choose your colour scheme carefully.
Usually you will want no more than three complimentary colours and one contrasting colour. It is best to use a light / pale colour as your main background and use a darker colour for text. The colour schemes below will give you an idea what a few colour combinations will look like together.
White background |
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Headings |
Main Text |
Links |
Contrast |
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Headings |
Main Text |
Links |
Contrast |
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Headings |
Main Text |
Links |
Contrast |
Basic Colours
References to colour in HTML documents are made using a command that tells the browser what values of RED, GREEN and BLUE are needed to make the colour. Your web design software will usually enable you to pick the colour you want from a pre-defined pallet. It will most likely contain the 216 standard colours that will work on all web browsers, as not all browsers will recognise and correctly display every possible colour.
These are some of the typical standard colours that will work on all browsers.
black |
red |
yellow |
lime |
aqua |
blue |
fuchsia |
white |
grey |
maroon |
olive |
green |
teal |
navy |
purple |
silver |
These are some more examples using different ratios of RED, GREEN and BLUE.
#003366 |
#ff99cc |
#ffcc00 |
#00ff33 |
#00ffcc |
#0099ff |
#cc00cc |
#cccccc |