Unpopular opinion: people use way too many colors in their palettes

Honestly, I keep seeing folks post these sets with like 8 or 9 colors for a simple website. It's a mess. I worked on a project for a bakery in Portland last month, and the client's old site had 7 main colors. We cut it to 3, and the bounce rate dropped by 15% in a week. More colors just make things look busy and confuse people. How do you decide when to stop adding another shade?

3 comments

3 Comments

ryan_smith3710d ago

Reminds me of a band poster I saw that used every color possible (seriously, @jordangibson would have hated it). You couldn't even tell what the show was.

thompson.xena20d ago

Portland bakeries aside, that bounce rate drop could be from a dozen other fixes you made. @jordangibson has a point about street signs, but a website isn't a stop signal. Some brands actually need a bigger palette to show their whole vibe. Calling it a "mess" just sounds like a designer pushing their own boring style on everyone. The real problem is using colors badly, not how many you pick.

jordangibson20d ago

Notice this everywhere from apps to street signs. Too many options just makes it harder to pick anything at all. A clean palette works because it cuts through the noise.