By Molly E. Holzschlag
Review by: Alex
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If you are anything like me, trying to get an idea of how to use colour in a website is something you need to take a lot of time to consider. What contrasts, styles and shades to use baffles me to no end, so when I looked for a book which would explain the concepts of colour theory and psychology specifically in website design I was pleasantly surprised in finding this book, a nice simple guide to working with colour in website design. This book contains all of the basics you need to grasp the concept of working with colour on the internet and is written by one of the worlds leading experts on colour for the web. Unlike other books the concepts within are designed specifically for the web designer and developer, not for artists and non computer people. Unfortunately this book is a little thin on the ground when it comes to major details therefore you may require an additional book to give a more in-depth study on what colour actually means and use this book to try to translate it into a web centric coloured interface. For those who want a general introduction into use of colour on the internet this book is a good place to start but is not a means to an end or a complete title with all the trimmings. The book itself should be noted however on having good examples of use of web colour and showing how altering schemes can change the mood of a site and the way people will feel using it. Overall, this is a good title for those wanting a crash course in colour theory and therefore it is worth the good value it offers as this book is one of the better value titles which is available.
The chapters are as follows... Chapter 1 explains the foundations of colour and shows you the various categories that colour can be put into and what relationships, properties, effects and models of colour can be used when deciding on what to use in your project. Chapter 2 details how to work with web colours and the issues with viewing colour on computer screens and various browsers/platforms and other technological complications which may occur. Chapter 3 shows you how web colour can be influenced with images and gives information on the various web formats available. Finally Chapter 4 explains the philosophical approach for choosing colours and the impact culture has on a websites "feel" for the individual user and the implications this should have on your design.
This book is suitable for the following types of people interested in website design:
- Students or beginners to website design who are interested in the basics of colour.
- Website developers who want to understand the designer’s view of styling a website.
- Graphic artists or those wishing to convert paper based artwork to the internet.