Basics of web design The use of color By Marissa. Color is a great way to spice up your page. You can use it to change or highlight text, change the background on your page, or add a background image to your page.
Color can also distract from your page too. Where a site has a light color background such as yellow, and uses white text, it can be hard to read. Likewise, where a site has a black background and uses dark green or dark purple text, it can be hard to read.
Here are some basic rules to follow when using color on your pages.
Do use contrasting colors where possible. As the examples above show, your text can be hard to read if you choose a text color too close of a color to your background color or background image.
Do use different colors for text (TEXT attribute in your BODY tag) links (LINK attribute in your BODY tag) and visited links (VLINK attribute in your BODY tag). This way visitors know the difference between underlined text and links, and will also let them know which pages on your site have been visited already.
Do use a background color similar to any background images you use. People may visit your site with images turned off and the text could be totally unreadable in this case. For example, if your background image is dark green and you are using white text, use a dark green background color (BGCOLOR attribute in your BODY tag). I have seen many pages that use a background image, while using a white background color (or none at all, in which case most browsers will default to a white background) and white text. These pages are impossible to read unless I turn images back on and reload the page. How many visitors to your site will do that instead of hitting the back button?
Do use printer friendly colors on your pages. Some people would like to print out the wonderful stories, poems or recipes that you have on your site so that they may enjoy them later. A lot of people will choose to not print the background color (where their printer has that capability). If your text is very light, it will not be readable on white paper. You may want to test the text color you have chosen by printing the page and see if you can read it. If you can't read it, try a darker color. Sometimes you don't have to go much darker so it shouldn't ruin the look of your page.
In short: 1) Ensure that the color of your background (shown when images are turned off) and the color of your background image are similar.
2) Ensure that the TEXT, LINK, and VLINK colors are all different from each other and the background color so that they are all readable and visitors can see the difference.
3) Ensure that the TEXT color you choose is readable when printed on white paper so visitors can enjoy your recipes without having to put the computer next to the stove.