After doing a search of the Internet, I was surpised how little has truly been written about the use of color to reflect mood and thought on webpages. Yet, it would seem that the choice of background color, the color of images, and the color of tables and other decorations are essential at reflecting what a site is all about. While most users go to a site for it's content, they are more likely to get greater pleasure out of the site if the colors are pleasing to their eyes and reflect their personality.

Luscher in 1969 developed a rather interesting scheme for predicting and understanding personality through a color test. Colorquiz.com does a nice demostration of how this principle works. He suggested that a preference for certain colors signified a certain personality. For example, people who prefer bright yellow are more spontaneous, and enjoy exhiliaration, orgininality, expectancy, and have a desire to expand and be active. You see that all the time with bright yellow sports cars.

Most sites are not bright yellow or do not feature bright yellow in their primary designs, but if you are trying to sell an active lifestyle or engage into sports, I guess that would be a good color to choose for your site. It would be terrible color choice if your trying to sell the idea of tranquillity, calmness, tenderness, sensitivity. Such a site would be better enjoyed by the readers if dark blue was used to highlight or accent the site. Blue-Green as found on many corporate sites is a good color, as it casts a light of longitivity, stability, resistance to change, obstinacy, possessiveness, etc.—big Blue IBM comes to mind.

Years ago, my site used a background highlighted by a dark blue color with brown. The dark-blue casted a form of tranquilty over the whole design, and the brown accented it nicely. Still, it lasted only for a few weeks, to be dropped out for a future design, one that would rely heavily on the use of shades of brown and orange-red. These colors were more pleasing to my eye, and better represented what my site was about. In part this design was based on Salon.com, although it quickly was modified to better fit my design, and to distinguish it from other designs.

Brown and shades of brown, sometimes leaning towards orange-red, are predominate on this site today. Other colors are used, paritcularly in pictures, but they are far from dominate. Brown is usually associated with earthen colors, and I think my environmentalism and love for the natural world around me is one of the reasons I think it is a perfect color for my site. Moreover, brown indicates a need for roots or belonging, it is shows a situation in which an inidividual is unable to cope. Luscher noted that brown was the most preferred color for displaced persons after World War II, such as the Jews. These people were searching for a new identity, trying to find themselves after the great disaster they once went through. In more then one way, I think this explains a lot of my life, and what this website is truly about.

My use of shades of brown seem to represent the symbolic notion of the image on the top of each page—along with the infamous Easy Rider lyric that sets the theme of the site. It reflects a fundamental searching for myself and for America—where it exists, how it exists, and who I really am. Brown is the perfect color for this site. It is complimented by orange-red colors, which are said to represent controlled passion, autonomy, and concern for others over self interests. Figuring that autonomy is a section of this site (the one talking about more personal issues), that color makes a lot of sense, and plays in the notion of being a free individual who can do basically what he wants to do.

Placed together you have earthen colors or something like earth tones. The world around me has a lot of green it and not a lot brown during the summer months, but a freshly tilled farm field will be of a light to dark brown color, depending on the nutreant and mosture of the soil. Literally, the symbolic value of that is preparing the soil and planting, and a preparation for a brave new tommorow. I don't like to use green with my site, as an earlier version once used green, and it seemed to militant. Those colors bring the US Army to mind. Blue-Green represents resistance to change, possessiveness, and obstinancy. That's not the image I'm going for or my personality, although I certainly do not think that all change is for the better. There is a difference between being obstinant and resisting an attack on our personal freedom.

The New York Farm Bureau both on their website, their memos of support, and their god ugly building overuse the color green. Certainly green, from fields of corn, alfalpha, and hay are an important part of agriculture, but it also gives the wrong psychological message about their organization. It makes you think too much about money, resistance to change, and just does not contrast well with a white background. A better use of color would be to blue, green and brown—that would reflect the message of agriculture.

Enviromental Advocates uses blue tones on their webpage and stationary, including a monotone graphic on the top of their webpage. It certainly looks soothing and peaceful, although all the blue everywhere tends to be a bit overwhelming at times. In particular, they get a bit carried away with using blue rules to seperate things. Like the Farm Bureau, single toned colors can be a bit too much and project the wrong image. Still, their use of color is better then the NYFB and their site is designed by somebody with far more internet experience.

There are many sites that use black as their primary color, particularly those sites that pretend to advocate things from the underworld. Black after all, is the absolute boundary to where life ends. Black is not only hard to read off as a background, it automatically gives a sinster outlaw dark meaning to a site. I would avoid the use of black as a color in any website, even those dealing with so-called morbid topics. Color sets a mood, and black almost always sets one darker then neccessary.

Color is ever important in understanding our world around us. It has an essential role in defining what a website is about, and how the user reacts to it's content. Certainly color is not the only important aspect of a site, complexity and actual usable content are far bigger aspects—but neither of those leaves the same important first impression.