When it comes to mastering web design basics to ensure that your small business web site is performing the way it needs to, your understanding of your audience must be applied to as many web design elements as possible.
For example, not only are color schemes essential for establishing brand cohesion, but colors also have different meanings across different cultures, which will influence how your audience perceives your brand or your product. When planning your website, it is imperative to understand who your target audience is and how that particular culture views color associations.
Insider’s Insight into Web Design Basics and Cross-cultural Design
When it comes to figuring out what different colors mean in different cultural contexts, it’s helpful to do your research. There are excellent informational blogs and online web design databases to help your research.
Race toward passion and happiness with red elements in your web design
In western culture, red represents passion and excitement. It also is used to symbolize danger, love, adventure, and power; when using this color, keep in mind that for some red also carries a negative historical connotation when used in connection with countries formerly in the Eastern communist block.
In Eastern and East Asian cultures, red symbolizes happiness, joy, luck, and celebration. Brides will often wear red on their wedding day because it is thought to invite good fortune upon the newlywed couple. While other cultures view red in a relatively positive light, in the Middle East, red represents danger, caution, and is also considered the color of evil.
Orange you glad you know when to use orange?
In Western cultures, orange is considered representative of harvest time and autumn. In the United States, orange is a hallmark of the fall season; it is featured from September through November during seasonal festivities. In Indian culture, orange is a sacred color while in Japan, it symbolizes courage and love while in the Middle, East orange represents mourning and loss.
Mellow yellow or a mourning mix-up?
In America and the West, yellow represents warmth, summer, joy, and hospitality in most places. Interestingly, Germans associate yellow with envy while most of the rest of the world associates jealousy with the color green. Yellow is not only considered sacred but representative of imperial dynasties in some areas of Eastern Asia while in India, it symbolizes commerce.
Alternately, in Latin America and Egypt, yellow is associated with death and a time of mourning. In another shift, the rest of the Middle Eastern cultures consider yellow to be the color of happiness and prosperity.
How to choose color combinations for your website
Although this list is by no means exhaustive, it IS indicative of how much you should understand your audience and how that knowledge should be applied to your web design. Depending on your audience, the color scheme you implement in your web design will be different for each demographic you choose to focus on.
For example, if your target audience is female and from a particular cultural or geographic region, you will want to cater your web design to that person’s needs.
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Our experienced WordPress web developers and web designers have the skills and tools to ensure your web design works for your audience. Let us get bogged down with web design color palettes so you can stay accountable to your business—connect with Mvestor today!
