I'm trying to build my web design business up and looking to hear from you guys. When doing a business layout for example... would you prefer light toned colors or dark toned colors? Which one in your opinion is more appealing to the eyes?
It all depends on the niche you are working with. I think most sites are done in light colors for a reason. But, darker colors seem to work well with high priced items (i.e. jewelery, furniture, autos).
That's very true... I do notice however that business word press themes are always done with the dark color blue... I'm not sure but is it that darker tones give it a more professional appeal.... I don't know. I'm learning new things every day and its great to help out with someones visions.
In my opinion, you should try to make your color scheme match the product you're selling, or the overall image of the product. Apple is a great example. Their products are shiny and chrome, so their website is too. Dark and light is mostly personal preference. Dark can be easier on the eyes in some cases though.
color scheme should relevant to the product / info u r selling becoz color reflect ur mood they can make u cool or angry. read here http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-theory-for-designers-part-1-the-meaning-of-color
That's very true! It should be consisted throughout... I also think that it also depends on your mood and visions of the overall appearance.
As said before, I think it should be relevant to you product / service. But on a personal level, I like a dark background color / image, then a light-colored content area, with occasional dark colors thrown in.
Choosing a colour scheme for a business merely extremely depends on the products you work with. Normally, light colours will give you the professional look as very first impression. But, its very important to select two colours as a primary colours for your business to build your brand throughout your niche! Branding matters, for that colours matter too. Jalpari has already referred a nice article on Smashing Magazine, which is very good for brainstorm for choosing colours for your business! Best of luck!
It really depends not only on the type of content, but the layout as well. If you have a crowded site layout with lots of stuff packed tightly then a lighter color could offset that, though it is just not as simple as that. By using light colors and contrasting them with darker areas in calculated ways, you can really breath some space into a tight layout. It depends on the shapes and proportions - in one case white may breath space into a design, in other it may look even more crowded while black creates a sense of depth could balance the crowded design better than white. Depending on the shapes and proportions the same colors can have very different effects. It depends on the products (or primary content), but it also depends on the target market/audience. If your target is middle aged women looking for insurance, you're going to want to use different colors then if your target is elderly men looking for pipes and pipe tobaccos. It can really help to draw up some detailed character profiles of some imaginary clients, do some research and find out what your target market is like and base several fictional client profiles on the a bunch of different types of people who would be among your target audience. Make the profiles very detailed so you can kind of get into these fictional clients heads. This can be surprisingly useful for coming up with layouts, and color schemes that work great for your niche. Also a lot of people don't like extreme contrast on the web when it comes to text. It is often easier on the eyes to not use pure black, but instead a very dark greenish gray or purple, blue, or even just a dark charcoal gray - dark enough that with the contrast, on screen it looks nearly black and is highly visible but it is much easier on the eyes. Or instead of using white, using some other color that is very light, nearly white. So to the eye, it might as well be white but the subtle difference can make it much easier on the eye.
I think it depends on the niche and contents, and I agree that a lot of the time it comes down to personal preference. Many people love white/light backgrounds and dislike dark background and then you have others who love dark background and find white to clinical/boring looking. Years ago I did a site for a client who really disliked dark backgrounds, that was one of his requirements it had to be a "light site", the contents and photos etc screamed for a Black background in my opinion so what I did was do them two sample pages one in a really light colour (think it was cream) and one in Black and the moment they saw the dark site they were completely converted. So dark and light both have their place, as do other colour schemes, I've done sites in various colour schemes Blue, Purple, Green, Terrcotta, Red etc etc, it's all about finding a colour scheme that works with the contents of your site and good design.