Color plays one of the most important roles in determining an emotional response to a space, websites included, and yet color palettes in lawyer web design are too often either overdone or ignored. A more effective way to reach and convert visitors is by intentionally using color to create desired reactions and results.
Start learning from nature. Just because your firm’s website is sitting on a server and displayed on an “artificial” screen does not mean you should discard the lessons nature can teach us about effective color harmony. Colors pulled from naturally occurring combinations are less jarring and artificial and are much more likely to produce a memorable, unique and pleasant emotional response.
Get away from the standards. Using nature as an inspiration for your color scheme choices can make for some surprising, effective and memorable online destinations. It can help your firm move away from standard, overused color palettes.
Sometimes even leaders in their industries fall prey to using the same boring colors as everything else. Take computing: HP, Intel, IBM and Microsoft are all predominately blue and gray. It is as though they all got together and signed some pact to be predictable. Health care is another example: United, Humana, Aetna, and Blue Cross are all predominately blue, green and gray. With all this sameness, how is a user supposed to remember what sites they have been to or what they have seen? Since most firms do not have such national name recognition, it is even more important for your firm to distinguish itself from the competition.
Learn from your surroundings. Choosing a unique color scheme can get you out of design ruts. Effective color schemes give your content focus and allow your content and navigation to stand out in natural contrast. Try to open up to new possibilities – inspiration is literally all around you. You are most likely already carrying a digital camera with you at all times in your phone. Use it to snap off a shot every time you see a particularly compelling, colorful scene. Great ideas can be anywhere.
Do not abandon your brand. If your firm already has established colors, use those. While you can vary the tint or shade - the amount of white or black you add to a color – do not change color schemes altogether. Subtle variations can create emphasis, highlight relevant content, direct users to navigation, or make the flow of information and graphics more harmonious. A complete abandonment of established brand messaging will confuse customers and make your overall firm image seem thrown together and unprofessional. Be sure to make your firm’s image as polished, focused and trustworthy, as are the services you offer to clients.