How to make a blog color scheme that doesn't suck!

(Disregard this tutorial. It's under construction for the new update)

Too often I venture out into the vast and growing world of Blogs 4 Me, and am shot down because of the insane color schemes that some of you choose. Blinding colors that just don't agree. I am here today to help any of you who have gone astray!

Now you may get defensive and protest that "I love my colors, if anyone doesn't like it they can **** thier **** in a ****ing ****er **** ****** ** *****!!!!!"

And while I sympathise... I must protest. I love color just as much as you, but brigh pink doesn't agree with yellow. There are some shades of green that don't belong in this world, and text is just not readable when you don't try to make it readable!

This site is for the display of your blogs to the world. With that in mind, I have come up with some simple combinations and a nice step by step guide for you to create your own.

Now you've got seven layers of colors. That's an amazing variety considering all the shades, but you've basicly got three plates to choose from. Light, Medium and Dark.

Something you've got to know from the start is that not all colors go with all colors. Light colors on light colors clash, and are difficult to read. Same goes for medium colors on medium. Some may work, most do not. Following the same trend, Dark doesn't go well on Dark.

You've got five things to color here. You've got to be careful with your choices, because as you've surely found out they have more of an impact than the little 'sample grid' could produce. The boarder color seems a bit more defined when it's used for the fonts in a bunch of places, and the blog head color is used alot for filling the tables around the page.

Even still, there's a simple tablet you should use if you want to have a decent looking page.

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Boarder Color - Light
Background Color - Dark
Font Color - Light
Blog Head Color - Medium
Blog Head Font Color - Light

Or, if you prefer a brighter page

Boarder Color - Dark
Background Color - Light
Font Color - Dark
Blog Head Color - Medium
Blog Head Font Color - Dark

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That's the easy part. Let's get onto the true 'color rules'

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Rule Number 1 : Don't use the first or last row on either side of the color chart. They're too close together to be really recognized. We want your colors to stand out, not be wall flowers.

Rule Number 2 : Don't, under any circumstances, use the following color combinations - Pink on Yellow, Orange on Purple, Red on Green, Blue on Orange.

It's not a personal attack on these colors. They just clash really bad. Any colors that represent holidays should be a no no as well, unless you're being specifically festive.

On the same note, country colors should be avoided. While they look great on a flag, blogs aren't exactially territorial. You're here to be friendly, and mystery is good for that in the beginning.

Rule Number 3 : If you need to highlight the text to read it, you need to change the colors.

Rule Number 4 : Try not to use more than 2-3 colors over the entire blog. It's excessive, and can make the brain hurt and cry out in pain.

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With these pointers out of the way, we can get to the guide. :)

Alright, firstly we're going to pick out two colors. Any two will do most of the time, but practice makes perfect. Take any two of your favorite colors. For this practice, let's take green and orange.

Very bold colors, as you can see by my blog. As I'm writing this I'm actually going to test this color combination for myself.

I prefer darker blogs, so I'm going to go with the first template mentioned.

The first thing you need to know is that all the 'light' colors are going to be the same. If you pick 'orange' for your light color, then all the light colors will be the same color. Trust me, it won't be too much. You're working on text and boarders here. The backgrounds will make up for alot of it.

So, let's use orange. I'm going to use the 9th orange in from the right. I usually consider the 3rd to the 10th the 'light' range. Same for the dark comming from the left. What's left in the middle is Medium.

That takes care of alot of the color. We'll take the 6th from the left on the green for our dark background, and the 13th from the left for our medium, also green. You could use Orange, but like I said I prefer Green over Orange.

And viola! A decent looking blog that's easy to read. Follow this tutorial and experiment for yourself, and you can have an awesome blog in no time! Stay away from the direct middle, as the colors are too bold. Other than that, welcome to real color!