Colour is a major factor in all aspects of design. It can create moods, styles and can evoke feelings and actions within people. Colour is a truly fascinating area, one which is constantly evolving and inspiring us to create new and refreshing designs.

Gone are the days where there were certain rules  with colour such as never mix red with pink, now we can put any colours together and still achieve a well balanced and stimulating design. But what if we start to limit colour in design? Instead of splashing colour about without much thought, what if we refine colour back to the very basics and only use what is really necessary.

Limiting colour in designs can create a more coherent and consistent look, making them more defined and altogether stronger. Using a limited colour palette doesn’t mean restricting the design, rather it can create emphasis on content, branding and messaging. It can also make a design more creative and intuitive, focusing on typography, imagery and layout.

Black and white is commonly used to create this limited colour scheme, however any colours used in isolation can be manipulated for this type of style. For instance take our very own 360innovate website, where we employed the dark blue as the primary colour with only white included for text and purple and orange used very sparingly for some content headers. This gives the site an easily flowing design, pulling the information together giving it a clear sense of purpose.

Below are some examples of other websites employing the effectiveness of limiting colour: