Browser-Safe Colors

On the Web, color is “in the eye of the beholder.” Much depends on the user’s browser, and of course, the user’s vision. Selecting colors from this chart will help ensure that the color you see on your browser is what everyone else will see on theirs; at least as close as possible. It also helps you to convey your color choices to the Web designer, so that both parties know exactly what “I want sort of a light shade of teal… but with a little more green in it” actually means.

When selecting a color, consider harmony. Harmony can be defined as a pleasing arrangement of parts and is something that is pleasing to the eye. It engages the viewer and it creates an inner sense of order, and balance in the visual experience. When something is not harmonious, it’s either boring or chaotic. At one extreme is something so bland that the viewer is not engaged, since the brain will reject under-stimulating information.  At the other end of the spectrum is a visual experience that is so overdone, so chaotic that the viewer can’t stand to look at it. The human brain rejects what it cannot organize, or  understand. When selecting your corporate colors, or colors for your logo,  the goal is to present color harmony — visual interest and a sense of order.

In summary, extreme unity leads to under-stimulation, while extreme complexity leads to over-stimulation. If your company is new and you haven’t selected your colors yet, or you want to use different colors on your Website than you have in your office, there are basic formulas you can use to select color schemes that will create harmony.  Since volumes have been written on the use of colors, and this Website is not about art or color, I’m posting this as a guideline for you to chose your color scheme.

To select a color scheme based on:

Analogous colors - any three colors which are side by side on a 12 part color wheel, such as yellow-green, yellow, and yellow-orange. Usually one of the three colors predominates.

Complementary colors – any two colors which are directly opposite each other on the color wheel, such as red and green and red and purple and yellow-green. These opposing colors create maximum contrast.

Nature - colors found in nature provide a perfect departure point for color harmony. One color theory is that if you use a color found in nature, putting colors such as red, yellow and green together will be harmonious regardless of whether this combination fits into a technical formula.

These are browser safe colors; meaning your Web page will look the same on monitors that can display 256 colors or more, on both Mac and PC computers. (Stanford University has a color chart posted on their site with the names of most of these colors included.)