Color
Colors are often hard to select. Start out by selecting one color and then vary the shades of that color with your links/backgrounds. I think you'll be happy with the look!
Color Pickers and Charts:
- Well Styled Color Selector (great way to select colors)
- Color Blender
- Color Picker - by Professional Web Design
- Color Schemer: RGB and Hex Coder
- Colormaker
Color Psychology and Web Design:
- Psychology of Color and Projecting a Professional Image*
- Importance of Color (from Web Design: the Complete Reference)
- Color Psychology
- Color Matters (Color Theory)
- Colors for the Color Blind
- Effective Color Contrast for those with Color Deficiencies
- Color Perception & Color Deficiency Issues
- What Does it Look Like (Color Vision Problems)
If you wish to add color, make sure it does not distract from the overall look and feel of the page.
The text and link colors should be easy to read against the background color - don't ask your viewers to strain or squint their eyes to read your page!
To ensure that your colors will appear as you want them on as many systems as possible, use "browser-safe" colors.
When adding colors in HTML, we generally use a code. Browsers can read some colors when written in "English" - white, black, blue, red, green. But browser-safe colors are represented in hexadecimal code and are less confusing to the browser.
Each color is identified by its RGB (red-green-blue) value -- three numbers ranging from 0 to 255 -- representing the intensity of RED-GREEN-BLUE in that color.
Each number is converted from base 10 to hexadecimal (base 16). Why? Computers more easily understand hexadecimal. (Base 16 = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F)
RED first two numbers/letters
GREEN middle two numbers/letters
BLUE last two numbers/letters
FF = full saturation
00 = nothing
Maximum values of all three produce the color white and minimal values produce black.