What colour palette should you use for your website or mobile app?

13 Feb

Written By Scott - Owner - Lithium Design

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Colour of the year 2023

The use of colours in marketing is based on the science that colours can influence consumer behaviour. And colour trends each year reflect the overall mood or vibe of what's happening in the world.

This year is no exception, with Pantone naming Viva Magenta the colour of the year in 2023.

This inquisitive and intriguing colour reflects the times we are living in. Our ways of life changed after nearly two years of isolation and restriction. According to Pantone, "our physical and digital lives have merged in new ways." These changes are reflected in the digital design and colours.

Pantone Colour of the Year 2023: Viva Magenta (Far left #BD3455)

Now, let's look at how to pick the best colours for your website or mobile app.

Why are colours important?

Guess what? The decision is not taken lightly. Companies understand the significance of colour in influencing consumer behaviour. Numerous examples of companies that improved their sales, retention and conversion rates, and other KPIs simply by changing the colour scheme.

According to studies, different colours elicit different emotions in users. Red, for example, evokes strong emotions such as love, passion, and anger; in marketing, red is frequently used for special offers or discounts. People now associate this meaning with red, so using it to draw attention to a special offer is a good idea. Blue and green are relaxing and soothing colours that convey trust and commitment. Black and grey are both sophisticated colours. Black is also used to create a modern and trendy atmosphere. Yellow is a catchy and cheerful colour, but it should only be used sparingly to highlight; otherwise, it can be irritating.

Colour is a powerful tool for creating brand identity and eliciting specific emotions in users.

How to Pick the Colors for Your App

To begin, you must understand your brand; what mood or feeling do you want to convey? What do you want people to think about when they use your app? Do you want your brand and app to come across as approachable, calm, bold, sophisticated, polished, quirky, or elegant?

After you've defined this, consider which colour elicits this emotion.

Colours are classified into two types: warm and cool. Warm colours are associated with energy, whereas cool colours are associated with calm and security.

For example,

Red is frequently associated with daring or intense experiences.

Yellow represents happiness, joy, and optimism.
Blue is one of nature's most prominent colours. It is associated with calmness and tranquillity because it is associated with water and air. It is also frequently used to represent stability and trust.
Green represents abundance, growth, and health and has become widely associated with peace and environmental awareness.
Orange is associated with happiness, confidence, and enjoyment.
Purple is associated with power, wealth, and royalty.
White represents light, purity, and cleanliness. It is associated with design simplicity and modernity.
The colour black is associated with strength, elegance, and sophistication.

The next step is to design your colour scheme. Successful brands use only one or two brand colours, so keep things simple and stick with your core brand colour.

A colour scheme is simply the arrangement of colours.

You can select one base colour and then various tones of that colour. A colour wheel can assist you in choosing different hues of the same colour by varying the saturation and tone of the base colour to select lighter and darker shades. This is known as a monochromatic colour scheme. It gives your app a more consistent look and feel.
The Triadic colour scheme comes next. You'll use three colours that are evenly spaced on the colour wheel. This will also produce a harmonious appearance without slightly ombre or monochromatic styling.
A complementary colour scheme is made up of two colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel. This is the most contrasting of all colour schemes, and it draws the most attention. Red and green, for example, or blue and orange.
Analogous colours are groups of three colours on a colour wheel that are next to each other, such as violet, red-violet, and red. When we group these colours together, we call it an analogous colour scheme. Because the other two colours contain that centre colour, the colour in the centre of this group of three is sometimes referred to as the mother colour. Colour schemes that are similar create a visually appealing and calming display.

Avoiding Misconceptions

Colours do not all have the same meaning to different people. In the Western world, for example, white represents purity and peace; it is commonly used at weddings. However, in China, white represents bad luck and is used in funerals. Something to keep in mind when designing your colour scheme is that the internet allows you to reach users worldwide.

The industry in which your company operates. Every type of business has its own colour scheme. The most important thing to remember is to think about the best colour for you in your specific context rather than the overall impact of colour.

6 free tools to assist you in finding your colours

You can now choose the colours for your mobile app. These free tools will assist you in putting everything you've learned in this article to good use to select the best colour scheme and palette for your app.

ColorSlurp we use an app at Lithium Design, and one we love for its usefulness and simplicity is ColorSlurp (Pesky American's), which is available for IOS and macOS.

Pantone Studio is the Pantone app. It enables you to create new Pantone colour palettes on the fly, save existing ones, and share them with clients and colleagues through Adobe Creative Suite or QuarkXPress. Colours can also be copied from your device files or a new photo taken within the Pantone Studio app.

Mycolor.space is a fantastic free resource for creating colour palettes and gradients. You begin with a colour of your choosing. Colourspace will generate several palettes based on the HEX code you enter. If you need to learn the HEX code, many free online tools will generate it from a photo you upload.

Color Hunter is a browser-based tool that allows you to find and create colour palettes from images. Simply upload your photo to get a palette based on its colours.

Color Viewfinder is a useful app for quickly creating colour palettes. This free iOS app automatically generates a colour palette based on your device's photo and requires little editing and changing. Colour results can be added or removed from the generated palette, and the final colour palette appears alongside the original image and its HEX colour codes.

Palette Cam is a free iOS app that allows you to create a colour palette from an image stored on your device. You can import a saved image or take a photo directly from the Palette Cam, then quickly register colours by tapping different parts of the picture. Once you've decided on a colour palette, you can save it to your device or share it via social media or email.

You can now choose a colour scheme for your website or mobile app. You have all of the information and resources you need to get started.

Don't worry if this still seems a little complicated; we here at Lithium design are on hand to help you with your website design or mobile app development, just get in touch or start a project today.

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