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:

Once upon a time, web design was just boxes and text with a few ugly hyperlinks splashed about creating highly functional but fairly uninteresting and unattractive sites. These were the dark ages, and now more and more inspiration for web design comes from everyday objects. A trend that has been occuring for a while and looks like it’s here to stay is using everyday tactile objects and surfaces and recreating them online. But this isn’t a completely brand new idea; from using images of folders to save files to and naming a computer ‘desktop’, there has always been an association with computers and traditional objects.

Imitating natural materials for backgrounds is becoming a popular design trend. Some sites have been using wood and paper to give a comfortable and familiar feel. The use of tactile material can also give a site a retro feel that breaks the mould from the usual sites we so often come across.

Replicating everyday objects like desktops, scrapbooks and pin boards are popular within web design to create fun, friendly and quirky layouts. This style however, looks easier to create than it actually is and requires a large amount of talent and time. Get it wrong and it can easily look unprofessional and outdated, get it right and you create an enviroment in which your users can explore and enjoy.

Here are some good examples of using everyday objects and surfaces to create successful web design: