Have you ever stopped to think about why you prefer one website over another?
Content aside, more often than not the graphic design choices play a big part.
And when it comes to decision-making, over 60% of it is based on colors and visual elements alone.
That’s why picking the right color scheme can have an enormous impact on your website’s performance.
We’ll talk you through the basics of color, and get your creative juices flowing with 39 examples of modern and unique website color schemes.
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39 great color combinations for your website in 2021
There are thousands of different website color scheme combinations out there, but honestly, some colors are better than others.
Luckily, we’ve done the hard work for you, and curated a list of 39 examples of websites that have really hit the jackpot with their color schemes.
1. Dark blue and white: polished and elegant
On the Shaw eCommerce website, deep blue and teal work well together against an overall white background.
The shades of blue convey feelings of serenity and productivity. Plus, blue is still commonly a color preferred by men – ideal for this men’s clothing store.
So, Shaw clearly knows their target audience (the urban, stylish, and modern man), and uses this knowledge in their web design.
As well as selling apparel, Shaw also aims to sell a particular mindset and way of life that includes wearing their products.
2. Turquoise and coral: lively and approachable
Green, blue, or something in between?
Teal is a great color choice if you want to utilize the best of both worlds, according to color theory.
While blue is known for its calming effects on the human brain, green, on the other hand, has a certain natural and organic feel to it.
Tribe uses a tetradic website color scheme on their website, with the teal menu and natural imagery tying the color palette well together.
As the brand is all about natural sports nutrition and freedom, it’s only fitting that the color scheme is based on the colors of the sky at sunset.
3. Yellow and bright red: bold and playful
Most people don’t think about it, but yellow is the ultimate attention-grabbing color.
Pair it with bright red, and you’re looking at some of the world’s most memorable brands: Lego, McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s, and Burger King, to name a few.
In Lego’s case, the brand successfully integrates two intense colors (red and yellow) into their web design.
The color palette works particularly well thanks to the white space and white background.
Red and yellow are analogous but also complement each other nicely, and giving them enough space on the web page creates a smooth user experience.
4. Royal blue and white: classic and clean
Royal blue is one of the more vivid shades of this versatile color.
And in the City of Helsinki’s case, opting for a monochromatic website color scheme has worked wonders.
As blue is all about creating a calm and serene user experience, it works well in the context of the otherwise dull city administration.
Instead of being difficult for users to get information, the clear website design and crisp color palette help make bureaucracy a little more fun.
5. Pastel pink and dark blue: sweet and complementary
Children’s medicine brand Libenar’s color choices are great for two reasons.
Generally, pastel colors convey softness and a sense of innocence – perfect for advertising children’s products.
That’s why Libernar’s pastel pink works so well as the main color for the website’s design.
The dark blue color accents the pink base well, making any call-to-action buttons and the menu bar easily visible for the user.
6. Sky blue, black and white: modern and dynamic
Dutch web developer company Awink puts a spin on the triadic color palette on their site.
In this website color scheme, the sky blue takes center stage, with different shades and tones of a base blue, black, and white in supporting roles.
Using one main website color creates a streamlined and simple design that’s easy to follow and use.
Plus, choosing a dominant color and accenting it with different shades is a quick way of nailing a functional, stylish color combination for your web design.
7. Forest green and coral: contrasting and peaceful
Earthy tones, especially darker shades of green, have heavy connotations of all things natural.
And they are an excellent option for any business or entity based in an environmental field.
The accent color of complimentary coral in call-to-action buttons and ribbons makes it impossible to miss important information.
Overall, RHS’s beautiful color scheme reflects what the organization does, and enforces the society’s nature-focused values.
8. Beige and dark grey: simple and chic
The color beige has been enjoying the public’s love and affection lately.
And no wonder: beige tones work wonders in website color schemes, too.
Graphic designers agree that beige and taupe shades are unique, due to the fact that they can feel either cool or warm depending on the surroundings.
So it’s an easy color to use for backgrounds since it doesn’t dominate the viewer’s eye – rather, it complements the other elements of the site.
As for the online store Wells, the beige color combo lets the type, the product photography, and dark call-to-action buttons stand out.
9. Light blue and purple gradient: energetic and fresh
When it comes to color choices, Canva has successfully built a design empire around different shades of blue and purple.
You could mention ‘Canva blue’ to a graphic designer and they would instantly know which blue color palette you’re referring to.
Canva relies heavily on gradients and pastel colors, mainly their signature blue, in their branding and web design.
Gradients give you a lot of wiggle room to create beautiful color schemes, without needing to choose just one color.
Instead, you can utilize various shades and tones of your base color.
10. Grey and red: attention-grabbing and distinct
Sometimes, less is more – and that’s the case with Departika’s clever color palette.
Notice how the business uses red as a strong accent color to grab the visitor’s attention.
Because the main brand color (in this case, the color grey) is neutral, it complements the red and really helps the content jump off the page.
If your brand relies on a wacky type, neutral background colors and a vivid text color is a foolproof way to create a unique website color scheme.
11. Black and white: crisp and impactful
In some cases, there’s no need to reinvent the (color) wheel.
Marimekko works on a strict black and white, font-driven website design. Color is injected through vivid product photography and accent call-to-action colors.
Result: a dynamic, minimalist eCommerce platform that gives plenty of emphasis on the products, rather than other gimmicks.
Whether you have a minimalist online store or a portfolio website, the black and white website color scheme works for almost any site.
12. Olive green and grey: calm and natural
This website color palette might sound tricky to pull off, but it works surprisingly well.
Green colors are most often associated with nature, making them an easy choice for a national park’s website.
Science has proven that the color green has a calming effect on the human brain, too.
By pairing olive green with a neutral color like grey, this national park has been able to create a website color scheme that feels tranquil.
And the best part is that this is all done without sacrificing functionality – a green-yellow accent keeps all the important information visible.
13. Sunshine yellow and teal blue: daring and bright
With refreshingly bold accent colors, Mailchimp has been able to create a beautiful website.
Allowing for white space, the website color palette revolves around bright yellow and teal blue.
While the yellow grabs any visitor’s attention, the teal is deep enough to be clearly visible in the website’s call-to-action buttons.
The color palette matches the associations most users would have with the word ‘chimp’: who wouldn’t think of bananas, sunshine, and jungles?
14. Black and gold: dark and stylish
Unlike its name, Bright Media’s website color scheme is based on black.
But the site’s dark background ensures that the gold and white text is clear as day. The use of muted tones as accent colors adds a pop of interest.
Instead of one or two vivid shades, Bright Media takes blue, red, yellow, and green and puts them in a rainbow-like gradient, and desaturates them.
This results in a unique website color scheme that feels high-end and stylish.
15. Black, white and turquoise accent: minimalist and cool
When it comes to the kings of web color palettes, turquoise and teal are having a true moment against a white or black background.
Make sure your website will stand apart from the rest and take a page out of Identio’s book: use your favorite shades as an accent color instead.
The Fintech firm is able to create a minimalist and innovative web design with just black, white, and a hint of turquoise.
Color schemes like this one are easy to come up with, and result in some of the best website designs out there (just think about Apple, for example).
16. Beige and purple: surprising and exclusive
Some color combinations, never mind how unlikely, just work. This is the case with Slack’s brand colors.
It’s obvious that a lot of thought was put into the initial process of picking a color – in this case, purple.
First of all, the color stands out from the blue-hued corporate branding that’s taking over websites right now.
Plus, its regal roots help to create an exclusive and knowledgeable impression.
And when operating in the competitive software-as-a-service field, good color combinations can help visitors remember your brand.
17. White and grey: spacious and sophisticated
Website color schemes don’t always need to be surprising and bold.
Opting for a neutral color scheme can add a sense of airiness to your website – check out Asana’s site, for example.
This website color scheme is reflected not only in Asana’s web design but also in its hero images.
The only splash of color comes from the product benefit snippets, describing why the visitors should opt for Asana. It’s pretty clever.
And, rather fittingly, these snippets are modeled on the look and feel of the tasks in the product management tool – colors included.
18. Red, green, and yellow: organic and warm
Can’t decide which of your favorite colors to use in your graphic design?
Do like Todoist and make all of them your brand colors.
Opting for a triadic website color scheme gives you a dynamic color combination, with plenty of options to mix and match colors.
In Todoist’s case, the base color is red, but yellow and green bring the different site sections and illustrations to life.
19. Bright orange and gradient blue: energizing and youthful
Sometimes, you just need one color and you’re ready to go.
In Storyboard’s case, the company has opted for a complementary color scheme instead.
This means that the feature color of orange creates a nice contrast with the complementing blue.
Storyboard makes good use of gradients in its smaller design elements, livening up the pages.
Most call-to-action buttons sport the brand’s signature orange, making them visible against the light background of faded-out beige and white.
20. White and red: playful and perky
Drinks brand Innocent uses white space and color themes to its advantage.
While the brand color palette is based on white and red, the company does a few things to keep it interesting.
Plenty of white helps the colors of individual products look vivid, and the brand matches the color of the product with its related text.
The visitor can expect that the product page for the ‘seriously strawberry’ smoothie will be red, or that the ‘gorgeous greens’ page will be, well, green.
21. Orange and pink: friendly and funky
Have you met Pablo the Flamingo? You should check him out.
This site is a great example of how to create an analogous and triadic website color scheme.
Since the pink and the orange sit next to one another on the color wheel, they look harmonious and natural together.
But website color schemes aren’t always complete with just an accent color: Pablo utilizes turquoise blue to grab visitors’ attention.
Let’s face it, he’s too fabulous a flamingo to not get his name out there.
22. Turquoise and cornflower blue: sleek and trustworthy
Website color palettes should really reflect your business, its mission, and the key brand values.
The eCommerce website Helbak uses calming blues to create a bespoke-feeling shopping experience.
Not only is the color palette visible in the web design, but many of the products are also based on the company’s brand style guide.
Helbak’s a great example of how thought-out branding can streamline not just the website design, but the overall brand identity, too.
23. Olive and moss green: natural and low-key
If you’re looking for a website color palette that just looks sophisticated, take a page from Namale’s book.
This jewelry entrepreneur has created a harmonious and avant-garde mood board website, with a fitting color palette.
The beige supplementary color boosts the olive and moss shades of green, while white space lets the product images speak for themselves.
The muted tones of the greens feel organic and have a certain calming effect on the visitors.
24. Hot pink and black: modern and boisterous
There’s one simple thing that all the best website color schemes share – they allow text to be fully readable on any page and screen.
Combining the right colors isn’t always easy, especially when it comes to bright colors like pinks.
Klarna strikes the balance just right, creating one of the website color schemes where a bold color (pink) dominates the design.
Meanwhile, black and white are used in call-to-actions and as the go-to color for type.
Klarna’s color palette is a good reminder that you don’t need a dozen different tints and a few shades to accent your website design.
Sometimes having a strong base color does all the heavy lifting.
25. Red, navy blue, and baby blue: simple and complementary
French web development studio, Waaark, uses contrasting shades of two primary colors, creating a distinct website color scheme for the company with a pale blue background.
Since red and blue naturally complement one another, the resulting color palette feels both bold and familiar.
The colors are kept at a high-enough saturation level so that the white text remains easily legible regardless of where you are on the site.
26. Yellow and white: radiant and positive
Looking for a color scheme that reflects your company’s mission and values down to a tee?
T-shirt and apparel store Surf Happy’s bright yellow, sunkissed photography effortlessly echoes the brand’s sunny San Diego origins.
The color palette goes hand in hand with the brand’s mission of creating a safe and happy space for surfers so that everyone can enjoy the waves.
A neutral background color like white makes the yellow all the more prominent while keeping the website design minimalistic at its core.
27. Black, blue, and red: retro and bold
When it comes to triadic website color schemes, HAUS isn’t shy to lead by example.
Although the housing company goes for bold shades of red and blue, the website design still feels light.
That’s because the design allows for plenty of blank, white space. It also keeps copy sections super short.
With this format, the prominent reds and blues strike a balance with the rest of the web design. The result is both eye-catching and intriguing.
28. Burnt orange and white: memorable and invigorating
There’s a subscription box for almost everything, snacks included.
Bokksu, the traditional Japanese snack box brand, makes it clear that it isn’t yet another kawaii anime box full of KitKats.
Instead, the brand has opted for a burning bright shade of orange, that ends up being both memorable and energizing.
Paired with neutral colors like white and beige, the finished look of this website color scheme grabs attention without being overbearing.
29. Pink and blue pastels: soft and delicate
Most of us would associate bakeries with all things sweet and delicious.
So it’s no surprise that pastels work wonders for bakery website color schemes.
In the design of Sugaro, soft colors are used to subtly mimic and emphasize the cafe’s product photography.
And when website color schemes get paired with the right font, you’ve got a whole package. Sugaro’s gentle cursive font is the cherry on top.
30. Dark purple and pink: refreshing and modern
Are you desperate to create a website with a deep dark background and a bright accent color? Take some inspiration from FCINQ.
One of our favorite dark website color schemes, this French design studio aims to stop the user in their tracks upon entering the website.
An analogous website color scheme wins here, mainly because the two colors of purple and pink would easily exist together in nature.
Just think about all the flowers that have warm hues of pink and purple.
To recreate this look, pick a dark color that you like and use a color palette generator.
Chances are that you’ll land upon a vivid color combination that feels both natural and harmonious while striking a nice contrast.
31. Bright blue and turquoise: youthful and techy
There’s something calming about the color scheme of Quiver’s landing page.
The turquoise and light blue background of the hero section sets the visitor’s mind at ease upon arrival and works wonders in building trust from the get-go.
As the brand’s services focus on protected file sharing, it’s only natural that the company would want to establish itself as a trustworthy entity the moment visitors land on their home page.
The website color scheme chosen is able to strike the balance between techy, trustworthy, and youthful, all at once.
32. Bright green and pink hues: explosive and fun
Panic, a design and animation studio, clearly knows a thing or two when it comes to grabbing the attention of a passing website visitor.
The website color scheme at play on its website is everything but boring: the green and pink create a lively color scheme that has no need for additional accent colors.
Using bright tones in your web design is a great way to stand out from the crowds, and communicate to the visitors that your brand is all about being bold, fun, and daring.
33. Pastel purple and white: mysterious and regal
Sometimes, all you need is one base color to base your color scheme on.
In this example, the pastel purple has been used as a gradient in the background, adding a certain mysterious air of anticipation to this landing page.
Thanks to the dark enough base color, the white used in the text and buttons stand out easily, not distracting the visitor and guiding them down the marketing funnel effectively.
34. Dark green and white: natural and organic
You should base your color scheme on the business you’re in.
The travel agency Poveda does a wonderful job in combining the green shades of the Balinese forests into their web design.
In doing this, the agency is already able to build images and market the look and feel of their holidays, before the visitor has even made up their mind on booking a trip.
35. Cool blue and teal: futuristic and edgy
Want a color scheme that instantly makes your brand look like the top business partner?
This creative agency knows how they want to make their potential customers feel: using bold colors and a modern website design, the agency comes across as confident, cool, and edgy.
As color psychology goes, blue is often described to evoke feelings of calmness and serenity, but it’s also a color used for signifying stability and reliability.
By opting for this bold feature color, Details clearly wants to tell its website visitors that they are a professional creative agency that knows what it’s doing.
36. Orange accents and blue: bright and energetic
You shouldn’t be afraid to mix and match when it comes to your site’s color scheme.
As the landing page for the website project ‘A Short Journey’ demonstrates, shades of orange do go well with blues.
This color combination might seem like an unlikely match, but with the right vibrant colors, it really catches the visitor’s eye.
By using orange as a background color, the other elements stand out – and frankly, in this website’s case, the creators certainly want the visitors to focus on the items that contrast the bright shades of orange.
37. Neon blue and purple: sleek and experimental
Zoe Pepper’s portfolio site’s color scheme experiments simultaneously with bright colors that accent the otherwise muted palette of blue tones and purples.
By using just the color purple in the background, the illustrations, done in a similar style, blend into the background just enough to add depth to the landing page.
The darker background also makes it easier to use a bright color as the secondary accent color as part of this diverse palette.
Opting for the brighter blue on the call-to-action buttons, menu icon and the logo enables the design to have a bigger impact on the visitor overall, without needing to make huge statements about itself.
Talk about a powerful color scheme, right?
38. Pale pink and white: feminine and playful
It’s also not a bad idea to do what this cosmetologist’s website does and base your color scheme on the likes and preferences of your target audience.
Targeting mainly young females, this website utilizes the bright palette of the varying shades of pale baby pink and other skin tones to create a feminine and youthful look and feel to the brand overall.
In order to nail your website’s color scheme, it’s worth analyzing the current color trends in your field and paying attention to the kind of colors your target audience prefers.
39. Lime green and black: sophisticated and minimalist
ReputationSquad’s own website color scheme looks like it relies on a monotone color palette at a glance.
But when you inspect the site further, you realize that there are some cleverly picked primary and secondary colors at play here.
By pairing the lime green with an otherwise dark monochrome color scheme, the call-to-action sections and buttons truly stand out from the black background and guide the user.
Why is a website color palette so important?
The short answer: over 80% of online shoppers make purchasing decisions based on the color scheme of a website.
And not having a basic brand style guide – and a distinctive color palette – makes it difficult to differentiate from your competitors in the first place.
So learning about color theory won’t just help you establish a unique brand identity, it will help you sell more and keep users more engaged with your content.
But be warned: users make decisions fast.
In fact, neuroscientists at MIT found that the human brain processes visuals in just 13 milliseconds.
And that includes color. That’s why users will be able to tell part website color schemes with poorly chosen primary colors in no time.
And if you’re not able to convince them to stay on your website, it’s game over for your business.
What are the best website color schemes?
Most commonly, you will come across 4 distinct website color schemes:
Monochromatic website color schemes
A website that has a monochromatic color scheme typically relies on one main color.
The other complementary and supporting shades are made of different tones of that main color.
Opting for a monochromatic color palette is an easy and safe option if you’re new to the world of design.
All you have to do is pick a color you like and vary the intensity and shade to create a fully-functioning color scheme.
Complementary website color schemes
This is where things get a little advanced.
To have a complimentary website color scheme, you have to understand a thing or two about color theory.
At its core, creating a color palette with complementary colors means picking (preferably bright) colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel.
The key here is the contrast between the two colors.
In most complementary website color schemes, the dominant color is used as the basis for the brand, and the contrasting color highlights important items, sections, and buttons on the page.
Analogous website color schemes
With this color scheme, we’re back at the color wheel.
But when building an analogous color scheme, you need to pick colors directly next to your main color on the wheel.
An analogous color palette looks harmonious, natural, and balanced, and is in its element for designs that require serenity.
Triadic and tetradic website color schemes
Triadic and tetradic website color schemes rely on 3 (triadic) or 4 (tetradic) main colors.
And not just any colors: let’s revisit the science of the color wheel once again.
If you were to draw a triangle or a square on the wheel and pick the colors in the corners of your shape, you’d be guaranteed to land on a powerful and harmonious color palette.
How to choose the right website color scheme
There are a few things that you should know before calling up your web designers or flexing your own creative muscles.
Your website color scheme should:
- Be consistent with your brand style guidelines
- Reflect on what your business is all about
- Comply with basic color theory
- Be intuitive
Even if you don’t have an in-depth style guide at hand, don’t be alarmed.
You can create an awe-inspiring website color scheme with various online generators in a matter of minutes.
But before you start fleshing out the best website color scheme for your business by asking yourself:
- What’s my mission? What has my business or online venture set out to do?
- What’s important to my business? What does my company value?
- How do my existing marketing materials, logos, and other advertising products look?
When it comes to website color schemes, you want to spark the right connotations and associations in people’s minds.
For example, an eco-conscious company’s website would feel out of place if the color palette was based on hot reds or a bright color like yellow, rather than greens.
And similarly, a boat and seafaring business with a website color scheme centering around the bright color orange could also feel out of place.
So, settle on a color palette that reflects your industry or your values.
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