Every year the design industry looks for what is new and exciting that will represent how the world is at the time. Just like design, colors can also become outdated as well. Every year bright new colors and designs emerge into our culture from all sides. It is inevitable that these creep into web design rates. It is best to choose web colors that are timeless so it never goes out of style.
To avoid going too far one way or the other with the color scheme, designers use a simple technique that helps them choose a color combination that will be timeless that will not need to be changed for quite a long time, but provides a design forward option. The technique is to use the 60-30-10 formula. This means 60 percent of the color palette will be based on a neutral color that goes good with everything. This will be the base color for the background of a website. Then a complimentary color is chosen to fit the 30 perfect requirements. This color will be used to highlight areas of interest. In a website, it might be used to highlight special pricing or an area for e-commerce web design actions. Now it is time to include the fashion aspect of our color scheme. The final 10 percent is dedicated to the fun color that shows our website is new and relevant. This color will represent the accent color for the website, giving it an additional aesthetic decoration.
It is much easier to replace your 10 percent accent color with the latest craze than it is to redo a whole website. Keep a websites classic with neutral colors and complimentary colors can have a bigger advantage when it comes to design within time, leaving the other accent colors to show the style.
A website dominant color (the 90 percent) should not be changed until the last moment is inevitable. And the complimentary color (the 30 percent) also should not be changed without proper analysis which can otherwise break the way the website communicate. The main color is what gave a website its base color, while the complimentary color is usually the contrast of the main color which is used as the main way of design communication. Both colors are the ones that give a website the character that distinguishes it from others.
A good design for a website is usually the design that give the appearance of two different contrast colors that are easy to remember and appeal to the site's main purpose. Changing the colors of a website can change its character and appeal, which changes the frequent visitors' mind about the website.
If a website is a representation of a company/business, the color codes of the website should be the same with the main colors it represents. Altering the website colors from the main colors a company/business have should be avoided at all cost.