Color Palette Inspiration: Winter

I know that choosing colors for your website can be daunting. One excellent approach is to build a palette from a photo you're drawn to. I like to pull colors directly from the photo, and then tweak them until they feel appropriate for a practical palette. Don't discount winter as being too dull!

For a website you'll typically need:

• A pale, neutral background color;

• A dark shade for text;

• Two or three accent colors to bring your work, and links, to life. Remember that buttons, in particular, should be easy to spot.

Just as I did for autumn, here are some wintery photos with corresponding palettes, to get you started. In each case, the photo comes courtesy of Unsplash, and I’ve used palettte.app to show the corresponding colors which would give you realistic options for your website. The “hex” color codes are included, in case you want to use one of these combinations in your own work.

Option 1 (city street): #3D3221 ; #948879 ; #E5E5E5 ; #C2C9CF ; #25251C

Option 2 (umbrellas): #477085 ; #83163F ; #E9E3E3 ; #9D8C84 ; #143F4E

Winter website colors option 3 | Pauline Wiles

Option 3 (Northern lights): #142948 ; #93C9BB ; #E8EEEF ; #7D8788 ; #225089

I chose images here that step outside what you might think of as "winter" tones, just to show what's possible using photos as a starting point. The right colors for your brand will depend heavily on what type of business you're in and what feelings you want to convey.

Personally, I think option 3 is my favorite. How about you?

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