To achieve effective color design, begin by selecting colors that express your site's intent. The palette that you develop must match the site's personality and goals. If you're representing a community Web site, for example, you'll typically want to choose warm colors to create a sense of comfort and ease. If your site is meant to be informative, with the words carrying most of the weight, the site colors should be simple and not distracting. Not only must your color palette match the site content, but you should choose colors that reflect your audience's values.
Some fascinating studies exist about how people around the world respond and react to color.
In the United States, blue is a color that represents trust. An understanding of what colors represent to your demographic will help you design a site that will appeal to your audience. Let's go ahead and begin a comparative experiment using two fictitious companies. The second one, To The Max, is a surf company located in California. Appealing to the unconventional, this site is the place to get information and purchase surf gear online.