Color me beautiful - using custom colors in SiteBuilder & SiteBuilder Lite
One of our designers on the product team, Jerry, has strong opinions on what constitutes good design. He gets especially energized about the use of color; here’s the first of a few posts to come on good use of color in your site design – Rochelle.
Color choice is important to consider when designing the look of your site. SiteBuilder and SiteBuilder Lite give you lots of flexibility in selecting colors. You’re not limited to the 30 standard colors in the color menu; the real power is in the last option in the menu: Custom.
When you click on Custom, you get the ‘Color Picker’, a tool you can use to select from a LOT more colors. The 30 standard colors are at the upper right of the Color Picker, but if you go ahead and use the circle and the vertical bar to the right of it, you’ll have the flexibility to choose from around 16.7 million colors!
And don’t be afraid that you’ll never be able to match a custom color again. In SiteBuilder, as you use custom colors the Color Picker will remember them and place them conveniently in a box to the lower left, so you can specifically select them again, just as you would any “standard” color.
Having millions of colors to choose from means you can find colors that are perfect for your site. However, it’s also very easy to come up with some combinations that, um, don’t work so well. Obviously, poor color choices can make a site ugly to look at, but be careful: even pleasant color schemes can be bad if they make a site hard to use.
Coming up in part 2: Color Selection
January 10, 2008 at 12:26 pm
We need better Web backgrounds especially those that have designs on them for pecific purposes.
Also, we need better banners, buttons, and etc. as well.
I would like to have a “word search available as well since my web site deals mostly with documents and words.
Thanks for the ability to input.
January 10, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Thanks Rochelle for all the help on php!
January 10, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I need the ability to give my custsomers a “wish list” on my website.
(I don’t use STOREFRONT or Paypal)
My customers want to be able to organize their “favorites” in one location.
The ability to save their favorites would make their browsing more productive. They would be more likely to come back.
January 10, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I agree with Robert. Even though every month I discover something new about site builder that is really great, I want to be able to send out really attractive newsletters through email blasts. Currently, the emails I send are blah visually. Any ideas?
January 10, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I like the color flexibility but would REALLY like to see it combined with an easy way to do gradients within sitebuilder
January 10, 2008 at 8:53 pm
What about color matching? A few years ago Homestead altered all of the colors used in the Homestead SiteBuilder color scheme. Suddenly Lime color turned into a earth tone lime color that did not match my previous lime colored background web pages.
My graphics editor allow me to click on a part of my image and instantly that color becomes the new “paint” or “draw” color. Why can’t I click on the color I want in Homestead SiteBuilder to exactly match the graphics color being placed on top of the background or webpage I am designing?
The current method of using custom colors (wheel and slider) never exactly matches the color needed.
January 12, 2008 at 8:10 am
LOVE the word search idea!!!!!
January 19, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Having the ability to offer a WISH LIST is a great idea. Everytime I use a wish list on another web site, I am reminded that Homestead does not offer that feature, and I wish they did. We’re all in a hurry these days, and sometimes it just makes sense to be able to put the item we want in a safe place, until we have more time to come back for it and hopefully add to it, too.
February 2, 2008 at 6:12 pm
When is part 2 coming out??