Head First Web Design

Chapter 5. Designing With Color: Moving Beyond Monochrome

Color is the unsung hero of web design. A good color palette can draw your audience into your site, give them a powerful feeling of immersion, and keep them coming back for more. And when it comes to color and web design, it’s not just about picking a good color palette, it’s also about how you apply those colors. You can have a great color palette, but if you don’t use those colors thoughtfully, people might avoid your site like the plague. By the end of this chapter, you’ll not only be intimately familiar with the impact that color has on the web user, but you’ll also be able to choose a great looking color palette that fits in—and even complements—your user-centered websites.

Help support your local music scene

The site you designed for RPM Music was a big hit. Sam, the store owner, has received such good feedback that he wants to extend his reach and create a new site called SampleRate that offers coverage of the local music scene—and he wants you to design his new website. The thing is, Sam has got it in his head that he wants the new site to be part of the 9Rules Music network (http://9rules.com/music). If this new site is chosen to be part of the network, it would mean a lot of exposure for the store and the site (and you as a designer).

9Rules: The blog network gold standard

In today’s web, blogs are everywhere. The problem ...