Do you think colours influence web viewers?

[rob123]

Hi all

I'm a newbie to the forum I hope I've posted this in the most appropriate section.

I am new in graphic and web design. I've decided to investigate how color may influence a viewer visiting a website.

If you could spare me a few moments to answer my questions it would help me out enormously!

So...

When visiting a website do you pay any particular attention to the color scheme? I.e. how well thought out it is and how it fits in with the overall theme of the website and its purpose?

Have you found that web designers tend to stick to pastel colors when designing female orientated websites? Or does anything go?

What would you consider to be the 'safest' color scheme which will work with practically any website and why?

Thanks in advance.

[Yamanash]

In my experience I have found that the color scheme greatly impacts the mood of a site. I pay attention to the color scheme and have found that it usually fits the type of site. As for female oriented sites I have noticed that most but not all sites use a softer color palette, but that doesn't mean you need to. I recently built a site for a hospital research lab and used a white, light blue, and light red scheme, using mostly white with red and blue highlights. I think this is a fairly safe scheme because it is very neutral but not boring, and it also has a technological edge to it. Hope that helps :)

Yamanash

[princetrickz]

yea color should go with the mood, purpose of the site maby (if possilbe)

[J Wilson]

Yeah, I do pay attention to color on websites I visit. The worst (and it's sadly pretty common in low budget sites) is when they don't really have any color scheme, and are using different colors almost at whim.