The importance of colour scheme in web design

It has been well documented over the years with countless studies into brain responses and emotive research that we as a species, react to things visually in a split second, milliseconds before other parts of the brain come into play and start to assemble the images before you, and start forming the reality that surrounds you.

When visitors respond to any marketing, wether it be a newsletter, leaflet or your website, the first thing they will notice is the colour scheme. Then they will notice the general aesthetic and wether it is something they like, then they will get to the content. So straight away in this time frame that lasts in the blink of an eye, the colour scheme would have already started to evoke some form of emotional response from the visitor.

Being creative, and smart with choosing your desired colour scheme well, you will influence your target audience before you write a single word. So it is best to try and get it right. It can affect the success of your business and its profitability more importantly.

So with that in mind, it is important to understand the qualities that certain main colours have, and their power to influence the subconscious brain.

Yellow Symbolises happiness, cheerful, hope and jealousy. This colour makes webpage brighter, but try to use it sparingly.

Red Is the colour that symbolises love, passion, fire and aggressiveness. In the business world, red is the colour used to motivate an individual to initiate action, convey a warning, or stop the user. 

At Red Noise Media, web design manchester. They use the red colour cautiously as it can be irritating. White Symbolises purity, truthfulness, cleanliness and spirituality. White colour is considered for a great background colour for business web design. Black Symbolises security, dignity, and earnestness. Grey is one of the good background colours and when used with other colours then also it blends well.

So you can see that Red Noise Media in this instance have used all of them colours to send subliminal messages to the visitor before they have looked at a single feature of the website and what they offer.

Blue Symbolises reassurance, trust and dignity. It is widely used by companies to attain through their website, a professional look.

Green Symbolises wealth, freedom, and growth. This colour is used for business websites for growing money, it is also a symbol in recent times of eco-friendly businesses, or companies who want to appear ethical.

Grey Symbolises security, dignity, and earnestness. Grey is one of the good background colours and when used with other colours then also it blends well. 

Pink Symbolises calm, nurturing, innocence, and cute. Pink is the good colour choice when your target audience is mainly comprised of  younger people and females. 

Purple Symbolises royal, creativity, luxury, wealth and mysterious. Purple is the favorite colour for artistic community, but it has no meaning in the business world. 

Orange Symbolises warmth, pleasure, and ambition. This colour is basically used for websites which deals in food and nature. Orange colour is used in web design services, but very less. 

Colour scheme helps you when you keep: Colour scheme simple, Use white space wherever necessary, Consistency in colours should be there and Lastly, Know your audience well.

Wordpress Theme Shoppping

It has been a long time since I went shopping for themes for Wordpress projects, I have always been a huge fan of the Genesis child themes from Studiopress, and I still very much am a huge fan.

However, some projects need a little something extra and with so many developers churning out beautiful Wordpress themes, it can be somewhat hard to ignore them.

We recently had a project come into our web design manchester studio that was for a dentist in the local area. Their remit or brief, was to have a website that was nothing like any dentist website on the market. So we did something we had not done in a long time and visited Themeforest to see what beautiful new, and responsive themes had been released.  I have to say that I always, no matter what the project, always move towards the creative folder of themes, if nothing else I get some great inspiration and get a handle on what is current.

The whole day was spent thinking will this do, will this one do, in the end I bought 2 themes and when it comes down to it, I don't think I will use either of them for this project.  My personal feeling is that a  website built on the genesis platform will outstrip many competitors who do not use it.

So even though it was a nice bit of window shopping with a couple of swish purposes, the part of me that wants to deliver websites that perform won't let me do it for too long.

When doing too much became doing nothing.

I have been trying to establish my business for almost 3 full years now. I took up web design as a career after getting the bug on Wordpress website design for personal ventures.  There is something enriching to me as a person about trying to be creative, it is how my brain has always worked and until 3 years ago, I never had an outlet to channel any form of creativity.

I have become steadily more competent at building websites and learning how to run every aspect of my business on my own, which I can assure you is no mean feat. I have made mistakes on countless occasions that have had me sat up into the early hours of the morning, trying to correct my errors without them being spotted.

During my last two years of trading, I have also been fortunate to have two baby boys, to add to the son and daughter I have from previous relationships, it has been a rollercoaster all the way, an extremely enjoyable one at that.

Up until two days ago I have been working at a decent pace and also took on a member of staff to help lighten the ever increasing work load that I found myself facing.

I came in work yesterday though and spent eight hours doing what felt at the end of it all like nothing. I have six big projects that all have deadlines for next week, and although my brain normally works in fairly competent manner in organising the workload, I feel like I am recovering from a lobotomy. My brain has just simply and honestly stopped working, the same thing has happened today, I have been on social media, read articles from the people that I respect in my field and become quite angry with myself that I am not focused on the job in hand.

I have let doing too much become doing nothing.

So I have  done what I always do at times like this, decided to get some of it off my chest, when I say some of it, I don't want to go into the fact that I was run over on my bike last week, or the home insurance people are ripping me off, that would just set me back another day.

So......... How has your day been?

A week away from web design

Well, I have been lucky enough to have the most extraordinary week and have felt both truly blessed on one side of the coin but slightly stressed on the other side.

It all started last Tuesday when my pregnant girlfriend came home from her scan and announced in a rather hurried state that she had to get her hospital bag together and go back to the hospital to be induced as the baby had not shown abdominal growth since the scan a week earlier.

Excitedly we got our things together and Ashley's dad looked after our son Jamie John.

I spent 3 days in the hospital and away from work waiting for something to happen. I had to also cancel driving lessons :(

But cometh the hour cometh the woman when it finally came time to pussshhhhhhh ashley was top drawer and had a beautiful delivery of our latest addition Patrick Ferguson Brennan. He is truly wonderful to look at and hold. He was born on Friday morning at 24 minutes past midnight.

I came home an hour later and crawled into bed knowing that I had my driving test at 9.15am when I woke up.

I passed the test and made it two special causes for celebration. The next day I drove to the hospital and picked up my girlfriend and new son and brought them home. Earlier that day I had been in manchester city centre and picked up an engagement ring for ashley so that when I brought them home I could propose.

I got down on one knee and popped the big question, she said yes. So now we are a year or two away from getting married.

Since Saturday I have had my one year old attached to me making it impossible almost to get any work done. Being a manchester web designer I am extremely busy at the moment with new projects coming in by the day. So that has been causing the stress levels to build ever so slightly.

But I just need to get into a better routine and all will be good again.

Right I am off to grab some breakfast before stay and play for the kids.

A well earned pint after a busy week

This week has been no different from many others. Here at Red Noise Media we have been busy finishing off some great web design projects as well as some very exciting enquiries and meetings that will potentially keep us very busy for the next month or two.

So at the start of the year I promised myself that I would not be bringing any websites home to work on and that come 5:30 pm Monday to Friday I would be home and unwinding. Yeah right, that lasted a week and since then I have had regular finished well past midnight.

I enjoy every second of it. The fact that I feel like I am constantly learning makes the whole process all the more enticing. Lay night I worked til 2am as I thought it would be clever to get a head start on today's work, and guess what? It was a great idea.

I am now sat waiting for my daughter to be dropped off with me and given that she is running late and it's f f freezing outside I iumped into the printworks for a quick, well deserved pint.

It's snow fun.

Here I am sat on my bed looking out of the window looking at the snow outside. I have to say.... It's pathetic at best. I could go out in flip flops and not get cold feet. It's supposed to be sweeping the country as we speak but, erm I cannot see me getting snowed in at all today.

This would simply not be the case if I had plans that involved travelling mind. The ol' brennan curse would have well and truly kicked in and left me with five foot of snow at my door, having to create stylish Wordpress websites from the comfort of an upstairs bedroom.

I jest of course, there is no curse. Apart from not winning the lottery yet I would safely lay claim to say i have everything I physically want and need. I have grown to enjoy the small things in life, luckily for me so has my girlfriend :) and take great pleasure in seeing my sons smiley face every day or hearing my daughters voice on the telephone.

So what do I think of this snow? It should have stayed at home.

Over and out

Jamie

Tough decisions on a Sunday morning.

Well I am up now, my first thoughts are urrrgh I am up at half seven on a Sunday and my next thought is urrrgh it's too cold.
However as my eyes start to open and I see and hear my gurgling boy sat up in his cot as I enter his bedroom, my thoughts take a shift in state an my perspective changes to ooh I am up!
I have two choices and on decision to make today and I am really still undecided on how I should choose for the day to pan out.
The good angel on my left shoulder is telling me to focus and do some work. As I own my own web design agency it is always good to start the forthcoming week ahead and in front with your workload.
On the other hand, and coming from the ba angel on my right shoulder is the news that Manchester United are playing Liverpool at 1.30 pm gmt and all my mates are going to the pub to watch it.

There, I suppose to vocalising the issue to myself has really helped.

See you all when I get back from the boozer.