I worry about color schemes. I know it’s nuts for a web developer, but I’m constantly reminded of the impact a good color scheme can have on the presentation quality of a web site. It’s horrible to put in a bunch of time and energy into the technology of your solution only to discover that your color scheme is driving your users away. Gasp! In my latest (desperate?) search on the web I found a post titled “Choosing Web Design Colors” by Donald Peterson. It’s typical of the types of articles I usually find, but I though the writing was direct, the style was comfortable and the site had a nice clean layout which told me Donald takes his color schemes and design work very seriously. If you are need of inspiration then give it a read.

I recently read an article on contrast in web site design that caught my attention. The author contends that designers must focus on contrast as much as color to accommodate people with various forms of color blindness. She suggests several tools on the web that can be used to view your web site in gray scale or rate your success in delivering effective contrast. The article can be found here. If you are interested in comprehensive web design then it is a quick and useful read. As for your humble authors blog, I thought it looked reasonable in gray scale (GrayBit), but CheckMyColours was as the article’s author predicted less than kind. My long postponed redesign may be getting closer.

Smashing Magazine recently published several articles on Color Theory for Designers. I thought they were pretty easy reads with an interesting perspective so I decided to link them here.

• Color Theory for Designers, Part 1: The Meaning of Color
• Color Theory for Designers, Part 2: Understanding Concepts and Terminology