Design Centre tips for your Linksites™ website package

Choosing a colour scheme


The easiest place to start is with your logo design. This is the basis for your branding and a great indication for which colours to use. For example, if your logo is dark blue, light blue and grey then these are the colours you should use to style your website.


Alternatively, consider using various shades of the same colour. This often works really well when styling navigation. For example, using a dark colour to define the top level buttons and lighter shade to define the sub-menu within. You can easiliy select different shades using the slider bar on the colour picker.


Our third suggestion is consider complimentary colours. Historically, complimentary colours are colours that work well together or, more importantly, colours that counter-balance each other. For example, artists would often use a splash of red, maybe in the guise of a poppy, in a green field to break up the green. Classic complimentary colours are: orange and blue, red and green, yellow and purple. You don't necessarily need to use full strength versions, lighter or pastel shades work too.


Contrast: Soft and heavy tones


Contrast is really important when considering colour schemes for a website. Contrast is the degree of difference between two colours. The most extreme contrast is white and black. The content area for your website will always be white so it's important you choose a colour for your copy that has a high contrast with white. Typically it will be a dark colour like black, blue, green or purple - NOT a light colour like yellow.


Contrast is also important when styling your buttons. You need to select a dark colour for the button and a light colour for the text or vice versa.


Finding the correct colour reference


If you are experienced in using an image editing application like Adobe Photoshop you can use this to find the colour reference of any colour within an image. You can then use the exact references if, for example, you are following the colour scheme of your logo. In Photoshop, use the colour picker tool to select the desired colour. This colour will now be displayed as a swatch at the bottom of your tool bar. Double click this swatch to display the Photoshop colour picker dialogue box. The colour reference is shown in the bottom right.

Creating images


The Linksites™ Content Management System (CMS) only allows for the uploading of images. Images need to be created using image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop Elements. Images can be uploaded in variety of sizes and you can download our Photoshop template for each from the list below to work with when creating your images.



Using Adobe Photoshop for more than just images


You can use a programme such as Adobe Photoshop to add other elements such as copy, headings or diagrams to your images - like we've done on this site. It allows even greater flexibility when populating your Linksites™ website package, for example, by designing animated gifs to upload, creating even more engaging graphics.


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