Color Theory and Blog Design: What You Need to Know

While the heart of blogging is writing, don’t assume that you can develop a successful blog without paying attention to strategic design. A good design attracts visitors and increases the likelihood that they’ll stay on your site for longer periods of time. Specifically, you should be paying attention to the role of color theory in blog design.

Why Color Matters

In order to understand the power of color, let’s pause and think about the analogy of a flower garden. A flower garden is designed to attract people. But if there are no bright colored flowers, will anyone even pause to experience it? “In order to transform a garden, it needs vibrant colors that can capture the attention of all those who walk past,” points out Tammy Sons of Garden Delights.

The same holds true for a blog. A blog is designed to attract people, but unless there are visual and psychological triggers reeling people in, nobody is going to pause to read and share the content. And much like a flower garden, color plays a role in this attraction.

Three Things You Need to Know

Whether you realize it or not, color matters. Great blog content is important, but you won’t have any readers if you don’t visually and psychologically entice them. Here are a few specific things you should know about color theory and blog design:

1. Different Colors Have Different Meanings

Color isn’t something we spend a lot of time thinking about, but the world’s most successful brands spend thousands of hours stressing over getting the perfect pigmentation in their color schemes. Why? Because they realize different colors have very different meanings.

Whereas blue promotes stability, confidence, and trust, red ignites feelings of passion, power, and desire. Green is usually associated with the great outdoors or money, while purple is the color of royalty and luxury.

Depending on your blog’s aim, your current color scheme may be helping or hindering your goals. Studying color theory and understanding the meanings behind different colors and how they interact with one other in a color theme can help you tremendously.

2. There’s Value in Negative Space

It’s easy to fall for the assumption that more color is always better, but as you’ve probably discovered from visiting other blogs and websites, the minimalist approach is popular right now. Particularly, there’s value in negative space.

“The use of negative space plays a huge role in usability,” designer Rob Bowen says. “Users not only need to be able to comfortably read all of the content on the site, but they also need to be able to easily find what they are looking for.” Negative space – which is most often white, but doesn’t have to be – creates division and simplifies the user experience for the reader.

3. Colors Draw People In

We often think about color in terms of big picture schemes and layouts, but color also plays a role in the details. For example, colors are frequently used to bring attention to CTA buttons, subscription forms, or other conversion-based elements. As you can see from this oft-cited study, simply changing a button from one color to another can have a significant impact on conversion rates. Keep this in mind as you make color decisions in these areas.

Make Color a Priority

As you can see, color shouldn’t be an afterthought. In terms of blog design, it needs to be made a priority. If you respect the role that color theory plays in influencing the human brain, then you stand a much better chance of developing a vibrant blog that reaches people on many different levels.

Original post: Color Theory and Blog Design: What You Need to Know

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