Color Psychology: Color in E-commerce Web Design

It is important to be able to understand and talk about colors and how they work in design so I will explain some key terms when it comes to color theory and then I will give examples of websites that use colors to make associations. We will start with the three main groups of colors.

Primary: This includes red, yellow, and blue. If these colors are combined in different ways they make up the colors of the color wheel.
Secondary: Orange, green, and purple are what you get when the primary colors are mixed into one another.
Tertiary: Created when mixing a primary and secondary color together. You get something like yellow-green and blue-green.

Complementary: These are colors that complement each other and are found on the opposite side of the color wheel.
Analogous: These are found right next to one another in the color wheel. They tend have little contrast when next to each other.

Contrast: Helps divide information on the page such as white text on a black background or black text on a white background. Yellow text on an orange background would not be an easy read, therefore they have little contrast.

Next I will give some examples of websites and the kinds of associations made when viewing the colors on the site.

Black

power

Brown

warmth

Gray

stable

 Blue

trust

Red

passion

Pink

youth

Purple

luxury

Orange

energy

Yellow

joy

Green

natural

White

pure

These colors can be combined to create color groups that create certain emotions.

Warm colors: These create sense of warmth and the colors include brown, yellow, red, and orange.

Cool colors: Green, blue, and purple create a cool feeling.

Neutral colors: There is not much of a emotion associated with neutral colors. This includes black, white, and gray.