Design Inspiration : 4 Websites Bold Enough To Wear Pink

Posted by Jennifer Farley | October 2, 2007

While doing some research for a new website I came across some very cool, bright PINK websites. I’m not a huge fan of the colour pink for my own clothes but there is something about pink that shouts fun.

Pink also has connotations with beauty, romance, playfulness and of course love. Not to mention feminity. So are you manly enough to have a pink site? Or are you girly enough to have a pink site?

Many sites use just a hint of pink, most often with white, grey or black as the main colour, but what I really like about the sites I’ve listed below is that they are not messing around - these are hardcore pink users! These sites are stylish and interesting to view. Any pink-flavoured sites caught your eye recently?

Sugah Stylez

Bow Wow London
Bow Wow

Vogueing

Pink Pop

Posted by Jennifer Farley | Filed Under Colour Theory

Using Colour in Design: Tints and Shades

Posted by Jennifer Farley | September 11, 2007

If you’re new to working with colour, it can be tempting to use LOTS of colours, but by sticking with one colour you can gain a nice uniformity in your designs. To get a range of colours based around one colour, you can do two things;

1. Add white to the base colour. This creates a TINT.

Colour Tints

2. Add black to the base colour. This creates a SHADE.

Colour Shades

Monochromatic Colour Schemes

Colour Tints The monochromatic colour scheme uses variations in shades and tints of a single base colour. You can use this scheme to create a clean elegant look. The monochromatic scheme is very easy on the eyes, especially with blue or green hues.

A monochromatic colour scheme can give a site a clean and classic look, but also provides excellent opportunities to let full colour photographs dominate. Monochromatic schemes are often used for serious political and business sites such as banks and large corporations, but a quick trawl of the web will reveal some very cool and trendy sites using this scheme too.

If you’re using a monochromatic colour scheme i.e. a ONE colour scheme, you can convey an order of importance for items like a menu or a chart on the web or print by using tints or shades.

In the illustration below, I’ve set up a menu for a webpage, using Photoshop, which is based around a kind of moss-green colour. I’m using tints to show the hierarchy, with dark green at the top level, a lighter green for the main menu rollover, lighter again for the drop down menu and almost white for the menu rollover.

Colour Shades