Last time we touched on a couple of tactics that go a long way to ensuring extraordinary website design for your next church website design project. Our last two issues (in case you missed it simply scroll down to the last post) were gradients and This time around we’ll touch on several more. Now, before we go into these it should be stated – as a given – that adding these elements – per se – isn’t going to make or break your church website design. The key, like with so many things in life, is moderation.
Along with moderation comes a sense of tastefulness. In other words, it comes down to making the right decisions about various design elements. While design is, of course, a somewhat subjective enterprise, there are still certain well-agreed upon do’s and don’ts. This certainly applies to color scheme and contrast, the two design elements we’re going to discuss today. So, if you have a good sense of what works tastefully- then great, go with that. And if you don’t, try and find an example that you can work from- a photo from Nature or another website that features a great compliment of colors.
Okay, lets start off with color schemes. Now, perhaps you’re stuck when it comes to choosing your initial color scheme? Well, rest assured. This is a pretty common feeling- even amongst pretty seasoned website designers. A general rule that you can go by is that, when all else fails, look to nature. Now, that shouldn’t be a surprise to us as Christians, right? After all, all we’re trying to do in church website design is reflect some of the creative flare of the true Creator.
When you look at a nature scene you will notice certain primary colors come to the forefront of the picture. And blending in with them are even more complimentary colors- shades that add to and blend with the primary colors without proving distracting. Take a wintry scene as an example. Here you have whites, blues, silvers as your primary scene makeup. But behind those you usually have plenty of black, green, purple, etc.
Word to the wise, in addition to these “cool tones” it also works well to create just a little tension- enough to keep things interesting. And, as you guessed it, we are now into the subject of contrast. Now, here the main thing to remember is that a little goes a long way. In other words, don’t overdo it. Remember, you still want (in your website featuring autumn colors for instance) for cool tones to dominate. But you’ll be amazed how great it’ll look to add a splash of red or brown here or there.
This is of course related to what we spoke about last time- with balancing warm and cool tones. But even beyond the issue of cool and warm, as a general rule, you don’t want to overdue any one color. The least you want to do is bring in some other members of the color family- meaning purple to go with blue, yellow to go with green, etc. Sometimes a much darker or lighter version of the same color creates the tension you want. And sometimes you might just go with a different color entirely.
While we’re on the subject of contrast, it makes sense to touch on the issue of backgrounds. The background I’m speaking of is the area behind and around the main template of your website. Now, a good background is one that adds to the overall design appeal of the website, without appearing overpowering. Conversely, there’s no reason for it to be too blasé either. For instance, as a rule, I almost never use true white as a background color. I use an off-white or a grey- because that’s just so much more interesting. Besides, there’s just so much white used on the Web already that its nice to add a little contrast with an off-white tone- with a hint of yellow or blue- as an example.
The last thing I’ll say about background colors, and this is the most important point to remember, is that it’s all about setting up the eye for the main template. So choose a color that draws enough contrast so as to focus the website user’s eye on the template itself. If the background color is too dominant- either by being too light, or too dark, it can actually strain the users’ eyes. We don’t want this! So find a balance that gives enough contrast without proving distracting or downright painful!
So there you go: two more tips for making extraordinary looking church websites, and websites in general. Website design, like any other kind of design, is all about balance. That’s why you’ll notice us offering general principles rather than hard and fast rules here. If there were hard and fast rules to apply then everyone, their grandma and their cousin would be a website designer. But it just doesn’t work that way. Design sense is a God-given gift. It can certainly be grown- but it cannot be made up out of learned skilled alones. There has to be innate ability involved.
And that’s why it makes so much sense – if you’re God-given skill is not design – to let the professionals handle it. If you’re looking for custom church website design from scratch (as we call it) we at New Leaf Web Design would be happy to work with you. And if you’re looking for pre-formatted church website templates – with which you can develop your own church website, then our sister site, Christian Templates Online is a great option. Either way you end up with a top-notch product for a very affordable price.
