Color Element in Web Design

Color theory is a set of guidelines that artists and designers use to communicate different ideas and feelings to audiences. Colors give an essence and live to whatever we see. They create a lot of impact on users as we have already discussed that colors evoke emotions. Colors may create motion and movement that guides users through a page by moving their eyes through the website.. Using colors carefully by selecting complimentary colors can give the advantage to showcase the value of the product. Combining colors in the right way can completely alter the meaning of a website. When choosing a web design color scheme, there can be a need to utilize color theory in making the right selection. 

Color Element in Web Design

Color Elements in Web Design

In web design, color theory plays a crucial role for all the designers and it is the foundation of web design. The color of the website, company, applications or brand changes the perspective of the user who visits the website of any brand. These are the reasons why it is essential to understand color theory while learning web design. Color has 3 elements – brightness, hue, and saturation. All Colors can be characterized as a mixture of these three values. Hue Saturation Brightness is a part of color theory that is widely used to select colors in a paint program, image editing, or other graphics applications and in Web Design.

Alvy Ray Smith developed HSB in 1974 at PARC to enable users to select colors in software as artists traditionally had done in oils by adding black and white to pure pigments.

Hue:

Hue represents a color’s appearance on a color wheel, a grayscale, or a red-green-blue scale. The source of the colors we see is defined by their hue. The characteristic of Hue is that it differs from other colors. It refers to the  color itself, like red, blue, or green. Hue is usually depicted on the color wheel as a scale. It is also used to describe colors without any additional tint or shade or we can say that it is the purest form of the color. Hue is one of the three fundamental components of any color, along with saturation and brightness.

Saturation:

Other terms used for saturation intensity and chroma. The intensity and clarity of a color are defined by its saturation. It’s also necessary to remember that the word vibrancy is frequently confused with saturation. Vibrance and Saturation are completely different concepts. The intensity of a color in an image is meant by saturation.

Brightness:

Brightness, often called Lightness, is the percentage of black or white mixed into a color. It is a characteristic of visual perception where a source seems to be emitting or reflecting light. In other words, brightness is the perception that a visual target’s luminosity evokes.

Why are Hue, Saturation and Brightness Important?

Understanding these three features can help us get the best results when using color photography or printing technologies. We can play around with color mixing, contrast, brightness, saturation, and grayscale elements by using an image or print application. It is possible to complete all of these activities quickly by implementing these three important keys smartly.

Advantages of HSL (Hue, Saturation and Lightness)

• It’s a highly adaptable, powerful, and easy-to-use tool with endless possibilities.
• With a brief introduction, it is simple easy to learn and read, colors are expressed simply, and the result is easy to understand.
• Workflow is simplified, improved, and made quicker by it.
• It is simple to use and can be involved into many other programs. The HSL function is a part of CSS and is compatible with other features.
• It is simple to put colors together in groups that are matching, similar or functional.

Conclusion

In order to reflect a brand’s identity or artistic vision, designers may use a broader range of hues and shades in websites and applications by using HSL Colors in CSS, which gives them more control over color saturation and lightness. Consider employing the HSL format rather than the standard RGB if the goal is to create a design system. It makes scalability easier and is simpler to use. HSL also makes color calculations and composition easier.