How to choose the colours for a graphic design

I believe you have been through this as I have. You can barely find a palette suitable for a site. Any site. We all know that finding the right colours is not an easy task, as they have to match perfectly, be complementary colours and please the eye. Colours can change moods, emotions and influence behaviours of the visitors, but also reflect and identify the personality of a brand.

Warm colours

Red - is one of the most powerful colours, attracting the eye. Red symbolizes passion, fire and love. It has been proven that it can raise blood pressure and cause perspiration. Red communicates energy and symbolizes war, violence, blood and aggresion. Even though similar to red, pink is romantic, relaxing and feminine.
Orange - vibrant and warm, orange is associated with autumn. It inherites many traits of red's, but it is less passionate. It is known that orange stimulates appetite. Being the colour of certain fruits, it symbolizes health.
Yellow - symbolizes sun and warmth. It may also mean hope, light and energy. On the other hand, it can denote weakness, illness or fear and cowardice.

Cold colours

Green – symbolizes health and growth (in vegetation), spring, renewal, regeneration and the sea. It can also mean jealousy and lack of experience.
Blue – is one of the most relaxing colours, being associated with the sky and the sea. It is considered as a ‚secure' colour and signifies intelligence, calm and faithfulness. It may also symbolize depression and sadness.
Purple – a combination between red and blue, one of the most intriguing colours. It signifies creativity, spirituality and mystery. Purple is associated with royalty and richness, but lighter shades are associated with romance and nostalgia.

Neutral colours

Black – may signify power, elegance, refinement, but also death (in the Occidental cultures), evil, fury and sadness.
White - represents purity, spirituality, life and marriage (in the Occidental cultures), but also death (in the Oriental cultures).
Gray – combination between black and white, a conservative colour. It symbolizes safety, maturity, confidence, but also sadness.
Brown – sometimes classified as a "special" colour, it can be used as neutral or warm colour. In each case, it represents credibility, stability, heart, earth, house.

Although modern computers are capable of displaying millions of colours on the screen, the sites may only use 216 colours, because PCs and MACs use completely different palettes, but have these 216 colours in common. These are the so-called "web safe" colours that will hence appear equally on both systems.

How To Pick A Colour Combination

Once you choose the tints, you may also choose a set of colours for your site. Where do you begin? Let's see some types of combinations of colours:
Monochromaticc – use of a single colour. The use of different shadesmay create the illusion of multiple colours. A monochromatic site sheds calm, peace and harmony. The use of a single colour creates unity.
Similar colour – use cognate colours, create attractive combinations. A combination of blue and purple or red and orange creates a set of resembling colours. Out of such a palette, 2 or more colours can be used, but one colour will dominate and the others will accentuate.
Contrast colours - are complementary and pleasant to the eye. Complementary colours create contrast arrangements, for example, yellow and purple or red and green. One uses frequently a warm colour and a cold colour in order to create a contrast, but it is not necessary that one uses the basic combinations, as blue and orange, you can also try grey with light-blue, or brown and dark green so that you come front with pleasant contrast arrangements.

Attention

Usually, the eye cannot focus on all the contrast colours at the same time. An orange text on a blue background is hard to read. Use contrast to accentuate and do not use large contrasts between background and text. Triadic set of 3 opposed colours. Red, yellow and blue would be a triadic combination. As in the case of complementary colours, it is not necessary that you only use the basic triadic combinations. By using lighter shades of a colour, one may reach a refined and subtle combination. Picking the right colours is a fun game. Colours surround us, within nature, on the cars, on the furniture, on the internet sites or in print. Analyze all the colours and combinations used by other designers, establish what you like or do not like about these colours. Nature is a source of inspiration. The flowers, birds, mountains and deserts, all have fabulous colour combinations.
All these being said, I recommend some sites that can help you in picking your own colours for your site:
Colors Schemer – Create matching color schemes at the click of a button.
Color Scheme Generator – A nice color schemes generator
Color Scheme Tool – You just insert the hex or rgb codes from or into Adobe Photoshop or any other image editing software and voila you are on your way to a great color scheme!
Infohound Color Schemer – This color schemer is a simple tool to help you experiment with various color schemes for your next web or print project.
Website Color Match – How to match web site colors – website color scheme and color code.