Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web, Third Edition

Chapter 10. Colors

Printing color is expensive. Hence, in books, color has always been used sparingly. On the Web, however, the use of color is virtually free. Most Web users have color monitors, so displaying color costs nothing, although printing it is still costly. So, there is no reason for Web designers not to incorporate color into their designs.

Of course, color can be overdone. As with all aspects of print, and Web, design – whether fonts, space, or images – color should be used to achieve a purpose with the design. Color thrown in at random doesn’t work well. Remember, too much variety obscures instead of clarifies.

Some combinations of colors are difficult to read, such as red type on a blue background. A background that differs from ...