How to Choose a Color Palette for a Website: A Practical Guide for Designers

A website may look very attractive, colourful and all, but it only sounds easy until you actually have to sit to choose the colours for the website. Suddenly you have to decide which colours would go with the buttons, which would go with the background, or what would be the most suitable for the headings and cards and names. At the same time, you'd also have to decide how the navigation colours would work, which icons, over states, and border colours would suit the best, and one colour for all of these is not enough.

The mistake many designers make is just starting with a simple thought of which colours would look nice together. Instead, they need to start with a thought of how to choose a color palette for a website.

For this study, we have chosen the colour palette #335C81, #5E8B7E, #A7C4BC and #EEF4ED. By using this palette, we will be showing a practical process for building a website colour palette.

What it Communicates

Before choosing individual colours to build a website colour palette, the designer needs to understand the purpose and the audience behind the website. At the same time, they need to know what the brand sells or provides and should the website feel serious or playful. Thus, they should be able to choose the colours of their website depending upon the mood they want their website to depict.

Also, if they want the website to be modern, traditional, premium, accessible, and more, then all of these things need to be pre thought. This is where website branding colours become important. A colour shouldn't be chosen just because it looks good, is friendly, or Pinteresty, or because everyone is using it. But the website needs to feel connected to the brand.

For these palettes, the blue green direction can create a feel that is calm, dependable, and understated. Yes, colour meaning changes depending on the context, culture, industry, and how the colours are used, but still these can dictate how a website is built.

Choose Your Anchor Color - 335C81 Atlantic Schooner

This is the deepest color in the palette which is portraying the characteristics of cool, medium dark blue with a more than saturation in it.

So what job can this color perform?

Because of its depth, this hex code has enough visual weight to become an anchor.

It could potentially support primary navigation, headings, strong text, important UI elements, selected states, and run red sections. This key gives your anchor the rest of the palette somewhere to start.

Build Around the Anchor Color

By using these four colors that we have picked out for our website color palette we will be exploring how each color can be useful to build a complete website color combination.

#5E8B7E Chlorite

It is a muted teal shade that sits between the family of blue and green. Thus, it naturally connects with the primary blue and greener direction. It can be potentially used as a secondary UI element, in supporting graphics, icons and secondary buttons as well as highlights.

#A7C4BC Harbor Gray

This is a much more lighter muted shade of teal that can soften the palette without introducing a completely new color family. Its potential role is that it could be utilized in creation of card colors, section backgrounds, subtle highlights and borders.

#EEF4ED Apple Flower

This very, very light green shade, which is almost close to white, gives the palette a space to breathe and relax. It can be used in large backgrounds, page sections, and soft UI surfaces. The important thing is not that these colours match, but it is that they create different levels of visual weight, thus making the website colour combination work really well with the UI colour palette.

Think in Roles

In a website colour palette, each colour should have one particular job or a role. This makes the palette much easier to use. A designer opening the file doesn't need to think which color should I use here because that should already be there in the system. This is especially useful when there are several designers or developers that work on the same website.

The defined website colour palette makes a set of decisions pretty easy instead of it being 4 pretty colour boxes sitting in the presentation.

Role

Colour

Primary

#335C81

Secondary

#5E8B7E

Supporting

#A7C4BC

Background

#EEF4ED

Don’t Give Every Color Equal Attention

One mistake designers often make while creating a website color palette is trying to give every colour the same amount of attention. If you have four colours, it can feel like all four should appear equally on the website but that makes the design look a little confused. A good UI color palette does not mean every colour gets the same space as there are some colours that are meant to be noticed. While some support and some make sure the other colours look good.

These four colours of palette don't need to work equally. #335C81 is a strong anchor as it can handle headings, navigation, UI elements and more to provide visual weight and give the website its structure.

Then #5E8B7E can support and #A7C4BC can build softer sections, cards or secondary elements. #EEF4ED that can give the page a softer base keeping the content readable and open.

The darker colours often work better when they are used with some control. For example, imagine a homepage where the background is mostly #EEF4ED, larger secondary sections use #A7C4BC, supporting elements use #5E8B7E, and #335C81 appears in the places that actually need attention. The hierarchy becomes easier to understand this way. And that is how good web design colors should help.

Your Accent Colour Does Not Have to Be the Loudest Colour

There is also a common idea that an accent colour has to be extremely bright. Not always. An accent colour simply needs to stand apart enough from the surrounding colours to be useful. In this palette, #5E8B7E can become an accent as it is a muted teal, so it feels calmer than a very bright green or turquoise.

For example, it could appear in icons, small labels, hover states, supporting buttons or highlighted information.

Test the Colours in a Real Website, Not Just a Palette Generator

Four hex codes sitting next to each other can look beautiful. Then you put them into a homepage and suddenly the text feels weak, the button disappears, or the sections look too similar. So don't stop at the palette but put the colours into an actual layout.

Try a homepage header, navigation bar, card, CTA, footer and a long paragraph of text. This is one of the most useful parts of choosing website color combinations. You are not really choosing colours anymore. You are checking how those colours behave together. For this palette, try placing #335C81 against #EEF4ED and see how the hierarchy feels. Then try #5E8B7E against #A7C4BC.

Even contrast matters. A light colour such as #A7C4BC or #EEF4ED may look lovely as a large background, but not be suitable for text, buttons and small UI elements. When selecting web UI colors, designers need to think about readability as well as appearance.

For example, using a pale colour for body text might look elegant in a design presentation. On an actual screen, especially on a phone, it can become tiring to read.

So test the actual text and background combination as a practical UI color palette has to survive real use.

Think About the Website at Different Screen Sizes

Another thing that is easy to forget is that people don't see your website in one fixed format. Someone may open it on a large desktop monitor or on a phone in bright sunlight or in dark mode, depending on how the website is built.

It means the four colours you choose should be flexible enough to work across different situations. The combination of #335C81, #5E8B7E, #A7C4BC and #EEF4ED gives a designer a useful range here as there is a deeper shade, a mid-tone, a lighter supporting colour and a very light base that gives you room to create hierarchy.

Do You Really Need a Fifth Colour?

Maybe, but only if the website has a genuine reason for it. For example, you may need a separate colour for error messages, success states or specific functional UI elements as those are system requirements. If you are adding a fifth colour just because the four-colour palette feels “too little”, then know that a smaller palette makes a website easier to control.

The more colours you add, the more decisions you have to make such as what to use for buttons, headings, links and much more. Very quickly, your simple website branding colors can become a mess.

The Final Website Palette Is About Decisions

At the end of the day, choosing colours for a website is about deciding what each colour is supposed to do.

#335C81 can bring depth and structure.

#5E8B7E can add a softer supporting accent.

#A7C4BC can create lighter sections and secondary areas.

#EEF4ED can give the website a quiet, spacious base.

The colours don't need equal attention; they need clear roles. That is probably the easiest way to think about how to choose a color palette for a website. Once that is clear, the actual design decisions become much easier.

Each swatch has a clear role in the system. Hover to inspect the names and copy the full palette when you need it.