Summary

Bear in mind the following essential points for using colours on a Web site:

• Familiarity with some of the colour terminology and concepts is useful when it comes to making an efficient colour combination choice. The hue, the value and the saturation are the key elements in selecting a range of colours.
  
  
• The value (i.e. the amount of light) of your colours affects the legibility of the final result. It is important to apply strong contrasts to zones that need to stand out.
  
  
• A technique that can help you to practise the use of colours in terms of values is first to create your images in greyscale and then to apply colours to the various shades of grey when you are satisfied.
  
  
• Efficient colour combinations are more a matter of colour relationships than of the choice of a specific shade (a hue inside a gamut). The examples shown in this workshop illustrate various combinations using neighbouring colours, intermediate complementary colours, and one colour (monochrome).
  
  
• Colours can be used to enforce a hierarchy of contents on your site. Try to think in terms of reading levels or directions (information to be read first, second, etc.). Make important elements stand out by applying different colours or values. Colour is an excellent visual communication tool and it is essential to make full use of its power and resources.