First impressions are a vastly important part of any website. In fact, more than one-third of visitors will abandon a website if the appearance or layout is unattractive. This can be quite devastating for a site owner operating eCommerce or other sales-based service online.
When it comes to customizing a site’s appearance without knowing how to code, WordPress hosting is one of the more popular. Not only do users have access to change color schemes and graphics, but many themes have easy layout modification capabilities. It’s also one of the more popular content management systems when it comes to blogging in general.
Below are 15 tools that can help almost anyone choose the perfect color scheme for a website. Whether it’s just to share personal information or maintaining a corporate presence on the Internet, giving people something nice to look at has a better chance of keeping visitors engaged.
1. ColorSpire
ColorSpire is an easy website to use for experimenting with different bases, shades and saturation. Users can select different basic components of a website to get an idea of what it would look like on a desktop computer. ColorSpire then gives the RGB, Hexadecimal and HSV coding for each to use in the site.
2. Paletton
The Paletton custom color palette is a great system to use for finding various hues and shades. Using a giant color wheel and selecting how many primary colors to use for the website, the palette is created depicting the different corresponding colors. The most interesting aspect is clicking the “Examples” link and viewing what the website would look like with a mock up front page.
3. Adobe Color CC
What list for graphic design would be complete without something from Adobe? The Adobe Color CC wheel is a system that lets users find perfect variations of shades and hues whether it’s an analogous, monochromatic, triad or complementary color layout. RGB and hexadecimal color code is provided for each selection.
4. ColorExplorer
ColorExplorer is an intricate website dedicated to importing colors from graphics or simply creating a library. Users can choose to upload an image to scan for developing a palette or create their own. What sets this site apart from others is the analysis and conversion tool that will gauge readability of the site based on guidelines by W3C.
5. Color Hunter
Color Hunter allows users to scan through images, hexadecimal codes and even popular tags on the Internet to find the best color combinations to use. The site will then display the different combinations of hexadecimal codes as well as related images. However, it may work best for users if they upload their own images for scanning.
6. SpyColor
When looking for web-safe colors, W3C support or simply want a scheme based off of a primary color, SpyColor has a variety of tools to choose from. It will even provide users with the style HTML and CSS coding to paste directly into the website. SpyColor is a highly detailed tool that offers a great deal of information and functionality.
7. Colr
Colr.org is a great place to go for uploading images and retrieving a color scheme to accentuate it. It’s also capable of searching latest color palettes, creating collages or pulling a scheme directly from URLs on the web. The system is capable of pulling random Flickr images into the process as well.
8. ColourLovers
ColourLovers offers a platform that lets users discover schemes through palettes, patterns, templates, shapes and more. It offers a social element as individuals share their own concepts spanning a wide range of topics. One of the highlights to the site is the category for viewing current trends in color schemes.
9. HailPixel
The color screen at HailPixel is basic, but it will fill the web browser with a solid color based on the movements of the mouse. By moving the pointer across the screen, the system will cycle through a color palette all the while showing the hexadecimal code in the center. Once a color has been chosen, clicking the mouse opens new screens to continue customizing the palette.
10. ColoRotate
ColoRotate is available as a web browser tool or as an iOS app for iPhone and iPad devices. It’s a bit more clunky and difficult to use that others on this list, but its three-dimensional layout offers a unique perspective for finding those perfect colors. The palette preview is nice, and users can publish it on Facebook to share with others.
11. Hex Color Scheme Generator
The Hex Color Scheme Generator is a basic tool that provides a few color combinations to develop a palette based on selections from the spinning wheel on the site. However, users can also input a single hexadecimal code and search for variations as well. The generator will then provide the codes necessary to make those adjustments.
12. Check My Colours
Check My Colours is more of a testing platform. It will scan through a website and determine a score for foreground and background color combinations. This score is derived from the W3C algorithms for readability of a website and works well whether developers use Joomla, Drupal or WordPress hosting for their blogs. The system will then provide the coding snippet where each problem lies so developers can continue to tweak the palette.
13. Color Sphere
For those who use the Google Chrome web browser, Color Sphere is a great extension to install. It works similar to Adobe Color CC while allowing exports to Photoshop, Illustrator and the Colrd web-based application. It will also implement a color-blindness simulator. Coding is available for hexadecimal as well as RGB.
14. Colrd
Colrd is a system that has more of a social element to the process of discovering a palette. Not only can users create their own color scheme, but they can also save it to the site to share with others. The site has a tool in the sidebar that will copy the color hexadecimal code directly to the computer’s clipboard to paste into a document.
15. Pictaculous
Pictaculous is a fun system to use. The online app will scan an image that is uploaded and then pick a color palette corresponding to that graphic. After a few moments of uploading and analyzing, Pictaculous will then present the most prominent colors as well as suggestions from Adobe and ColourLovers to accentuate the image.
In conclusion…
WordPress hosting is a great place to start when creating a new blog. However, knowing the target audience and what they’ll find visually appealing may take a bit of work. Give the site the best chances for success by finding a color scheme that is relevant for both content as well as industry. It will play a bigger role in success than developers may realize.
