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-Sometimes a dagger in the dark is more effective than a hundred swords at dawn. -Officio Assassinorium

First of all, NEVER EVER use Times New Roman (the default) as your font. It is so hideous I can't stand it.

Do you know CSS? The BEST way to experiment with color schemes is a style sheet. You can set the entire document's font, colors, etc. in one place.

The key to good links is to make them a distinctive color, and DON'T let them be underlined. In your style sheet, say :

A {
// other elements
text-decoration : none;
}

Ever notice how you stop momentarily on traditional blue underlined links? If you make your text black, and your links a dark but fairly pure color, links aren't as jarring to the reader. I usually pick almost the same colors for a regular link, an active link, and a followed one, just enough to tell the difference without being overwhelming the text with color.

For background colors, pick a "master" color. #220044 is a twilight blue. Now adjust the levels of R and B, keeping them in roughly the same proportion :

#880044 Medium purple
#CC00FF Very bright, almost magenta
#000022 Very dark navy blue
#884444 Adding a small amount of green makes the color more grayish

From there you have a somewhat consistent color scheme. Consistency is what's most important. You colors shouldn't clash - please DON'T use #FF0000 text on a background of #00FF00.

Another good trick to pick colors requires a scanner. Scan in a really nice picture of a sunset, the sky, or something else that is eye-pleasing. Use Photoshop or something to pick colors from different locations. That allows you to copy the mood from the picture.

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... NEVER EVER use Times New Roman ...

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although, yeah, it's not the prettiest font, it is the most common. I went to one site where the guy used some mac font and it came up as japanese or something on my old windows box. I mean, I saw a screen shoot of what it was supposed to look like, and it was probably the coolest font ever, but you have think target users. Use whatever you feel your users will have (most the time that's a generic font, hense Times New Roman, or maybe Courier (spelling?)).

quote:

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The key to good links is to make them a distinctive color, and DON'T let them be underlined.

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yeah, links should be a color outside your normal text's color range, I dunno about the non-underlined thing. It looks a lot nice with out the underlines, and most people with a IQ greater then that of a rainbow marshmellow (from lucky charms) can make out the difference, a lot of stupid people use the internet and they might not be able to tell the difference. If you do decide on doing this, make sure you also add a part to your CSS that makes the links bold or something (I should know the code, but it's slipped my mind for the moment, sorry).

Like Cyclone said, background colors should be easy on the eyes... black's always been a favorite of mine. Using darker backgrounds defines your text more, as long as it's a brighter color.

Also remember few colors appear the same on different systems/browsers. for your r/g/b, I'd say stick to using 00, 33, 66, 99, cc, ff, or other "solid state" colors. sticking in different hex colors could make a bright green color on my neighbor's iMac and a barf green on my linux box. I remember http://www.webmonkey.com/ had an article on this a while ago, I'll go looking for it later.

Other then that, I always say keep your users in mind. if you want "gothic" people to visit your site, use darker colors. if you want cheery church goers to visit your site, use whites and golds (not only do I do webdesign, sysadmin'ing, music production/dj, etc, I'm a psychologist!). And don't forget that goes for other things, too. What kind of design you use, CSS, all that good stuff...

'nuff talking, I'll shutup now.

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Spydir Web - spydirweb@techie.com
Core Arctic - http://welcome.to/CoreArctic/

quote:

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I went to one site where the guy used some mac font and it came up as japanese or something on my old windows box.

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You can get around this by specifying multiple fonts :

BODY {
font-family : Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
}

or

<FONT face="Comic Sans MS,Courier New,fixed">

The browser will go through the font list until it finds one it knows. The last one should ALWAYS be either "serif" (usually Times or Times New Roman), "sans-serif" (Arial or Helvetica), or "fixed" (Courier or Courier New).

Verdana seems to be the easiest font to read, especially at smaller font sizes. Most Windows boxes have it.

If you need to use a really rare font, render it in Photoshop and use a .GIF image on your web page.

This message has been edited by damien_s_lucifer on January 28, 2001 at 08:21 PM

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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost