How To Choose Color Palettes For Interior Designer Websites

Whenever beginning a new website redesign, branding project or marketing initiative for an interior design firm client, I start by asking if the brand colors are set in stone and if the firm has a set of brand standards. If not, I then ask my design clients to consider color theory before choosing a direction for the project.

Interior designers, design build contractors, and architects usually understand the psychological effects of color intuitively. After all, they need to explain color and guide a clients’ color choice as a regular part of their design services. Color choices in marketing are only slightly different than choosing colors for a commercial or residential interior design project. Sherwin-Williams has always been a color resource for built environment professionals and is familiar to most in the trade, so, let's take a look at the color education area of the Sherwin-Williams website to refresh our knowledge of color psychology and apply the same concepts to marketing initiatives.

The Emotional Effects of Color

Color is a vital component of any built environment and can have either subtle or dramatic effect on our mood. The same is true when someone receives an email from your firm, visits your website or downloads a brochure. I too often find that an interior designer has taken great effort to create a wonderful space for their business, but their brand standards and marketing deliverables are a messy contradiction and poorly conceptualized. Often each marketing channel is entirely different and contains colors that don't match. This is a real shame considering how environmental graphic design has become so important and brand consistency can lead to better clients and higher incomes. 

As an interior designer, your job is to guide the choice of color palettes so that the emotional and psychological effect of the color combination has on the inhabitants improves the experience of being in the space. 

Hue

This is the indicator of the general family of the color, i.e. red, blue or green. Traditionally there are twelve families of colors: violet-blue, violet, violet-red-blue, blue-green, green, green-yellow, yellow, yellow-orange, orange, orange-red and red.

Color Wheel

Two colors are said to complement each other if they are on the opposite sides of the color wheel. By combining these colors you can make a striking contrast. However, those who want to have less of a contrast should choose colors which are next to each other on the wheel.

Temperature

Without getting into the Kelvin scale, different colors are either described as being warm or cool. If the color has a yellow undertone it is said to be of a warm nature, whereas those with either blue or red undertones are considered to be cool colors.

Warm colors invite the occupants to be active and engage in conversation, while the cool colors persuade those in the room to have a more relaxed nature. So you would want a nice cool color for a bedroom and a warm color for a room used for entertaining.

Value

If you are describing how light or dark the specific color should be, you are talking about the value of the color. If you are creating a room which has different values of the same color, this is a monochromatic color scheme, a perfect way of designing a room that is sophisticated and spacious.

By designing a website with a sophisticated look, using warm colors to grab and retain the attention of the reader; people will remain on the landing pages of the interior design firms for longer as they move down towards the data capture and are more likely to complete it.

Therefore, while color is very important for your clients’ rooms, it is also important for your website and your marketing effort. Consider the colors that affect your website visitors in a positive way and encourage them to take action. Use these colors in specific areas on the website like call-to-actions, heading fonts, lines and buttons. Even if your primary palette is a version of white, so that your images attract attention, consider an accent color approach to your website design. Color sets a mood and at its most basic it can encourage an action - Green Means Go as an example.  Incorporate what you intuitively know about color usage in your day to day interior design activities and get increased lead generation and customer conversions.