GeodSoft.com Color Scheme

Color and color theory was my primary interest and greatest strength when I actively pursued art. This is tempered with an solid understanding of the 216 "web safe" colors and a belief that for the near future there are clear advantages to sticking with these colors for page backgrounds, fonts and large solid graphic areas. Choice of a color scheme was surprisingly simple. From recent experiments with cascading style sheets I liked several shades of darker blue type on a pale blue background. Obviously this description does not apply to the current design and color scheme; view the original design and color scheme.

Given a predominately blue color scheme, what would make good accent colors? Complementary schemes are virtually standard and safe if you avoid the extremes of contrast but orange and blue is a little to strong and off-beat for my personal tastes and while I very much like blues and browns (subdued oranges) in many things, especially clothing this is a little to quiet for what I wanted. Triads form the basis of many color schemes with the primary red, yellow and blue being very popular but this would take a lot of care not to be overpowering as a web site color scheme.

I decided to use red as the primary accent color for graphics and text on which I wanted to put a special emphasis. I wanted a strong bright red but not quite full intensity. I chose the web safe red that has just a little blue in it and is just a shade darker than the full intensity red. For the lettering on red buttons I chose white.

Red, white and blue is an extremely popular and graphically very strong color combination and this is quite independent of the patriotic associations in the USA. Red, white and blue is one of the most popular color schemes for the flags of many countries. The combination doesn't quite fit with standard combinations that are taught in color theory. I think it works as well as it does because it's a variation on the red, yellow, blue triad. Pure yellow is by far the lightest pure hue with its value being only about one shade from white.

Top of Page - Site Map

Copyright © 2000 - 2014 by George Shaffer. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in http://GeodSoft.com/terms.htm (or http://GeodSoft.com/cgi-bin/terms.pl). These terms are subject to change. Distribution is subject to the current terms, or at the choice of the distributor, those in an earlier, digitally signed electronic copy of http://GeodSoft.com/terms.htm (or cgi-bin/terms.pl) from the time of the distribution. Distribution of substantively modified versions of GeodSoft content is prohibited without the explicit written permission of George Shaffer. Distribution of the work or derivatives of the work, in whole or in part, for commercial purposes is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained from George Shaffer. Distribution in accordance with these terms, for unrestricted and uncompensated public access, non profit, or internal company use is allowed.