One of the best ways for making a school's website stand out and grab a user's attention is color. Colors, in every shade, are powerful brand-building tools that elevate a school website's design, and knowing how and when to use them can make all the difference in the user experience.

Colors can guide website visitors to important parts of your site, like the admissions page or the school calendar, and while they can also help make your site more intuitive and enjoyable to use, choosing the right colors for a website comes down to using them strategically and ensuring everyone can benefit from them, even if they see colors differently.

Let’s explore these concepts more in-depth and look at some of the schools using color as part of their design strategy.

How Color Boosts School Website Engagement

Your website’s colors can make students and parents feel happy and welcome, adventurous or inspired, help them find the most essential information, and even encourage them to sign up for a tour or open house. Your school's website colors can also help:

• Make a strong first impression
• Help with brand recognition
• Evoke the right emotions
• Guide visitors to important information
• Improve readability and accessibility

Website Colors and Emotions

Color psychology involves how different color combinations make us think, feel, and act. A light blue can make us calm and happy, while red can invoke passion, excitement, and energy. There isn't a "best color for a school's website," but when building your site or updating your branding, think about how your site's colors can make visitors feel.

• Blue: This color is often seen as calming and trustworthy. It's a good choice for a school website because it can make people feel safe and confident in the school's ability to teach and care for their children.
• Red: Red stands out and grabs attention. It's full of energy and can feel exciting. However, it's best to use red in small amounts so it doesn't overwhelm visitors or make them anxious.
• Green: Green makes us think of nature and can bring about feelings of peace and growth. It's an excellent color for schools that want to show they're focused on development, whether it's personal growth, academic success, or environmental awareness.
• Yellow: Yellow is bright, young, and cheerful, like the sun. It can make your website feel warm and welcoming. However, too much yellow or bright yellow can be hard on the eyes, so it's essential to use it wisely.
• Orange: Orange is a mix of red's energy and yellow's happiness. It's a fun color that can help make a website feel friendly and lively.
• Purple: Purple is often seen as a creative, royal, and luxurious color. It shows that a school is innovative and forward-thinking. 

Corbett Prep's distinguished blues and purples are woven naturally into textured backgrounds, CTAs (calls to action), and content blocks. Purple can invoke a sense of creativity, perfect to represent Corbett's PreK through grade 8 program.

Best Practices for Implementing Color on Your School's Website

Color plays a big role in many award-winning school website designs, especially because of how well they support a school's brand.

The colors your school uses on its website are a large part of your story, as well as what it values and believes in. Sometimes, choosing a unique or bold color can make a school stand out with an eye-catching visual appeal, and each color can say something different about a school.

If a school picks green, it might say it cares a lot about growth, nature, or being environmentally friendly. For example, the muted pastels and white space of St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School's site complement the text styles and tones of its content. When paired with its imagery, it all works together to support its mission of sustainability, inclusion, justice, and faith.

Using Color to Stand Out

While it's good to use colors that match your school's personality, it's also wise to look at what colors other schools are using. If every school in the area uses blue, choosing a different shade or accent color could help your school stand out. This doesn't mean picking a wild color just to be different, but, if your school is innovative or has a unique program, using colors like purple or orange could help highlight these differences.

The American International School of Kingston team uses buttons and cards on its interior pages to leverage its brand colors, and its panels and differently-colored hover states on CTAs add even more vibrancy to its content.

Choosing the Right Color Palette:

You want your site to look good, feel on brand, and make a great impression. Here's how to pick a color scheme that fits your school perfectly.

Understand Your School's Personality and Values

Think about what your school stands for. Is it creativity, tradition, innovation, or community? The colors you choose should match these ideas.

For example, green can show growth and environmental focus, while blue can represent trust and stability. Germantown Friends School has a wonderfully balanced color palette that captures the vibrant and welcoming environment of its Quaker education.

Start with a Main Color

Work within your brand’s color palette and pick one main color that best shows your school's heart, as Commerce Independent School District has done with its site. If your school already has a main color in its logo or uniform, like the orange at CISD, that's a great place to start.

Add Supporting Colors

Next, choose a few other colors that complement your main brand color. These supporting colors will be used on buttons, CTAs, profiles, backgrounds, or content blocks, and they can make your website more exciting and easier to navigate—take a look at St. Pius X High School's homepage panels—each section has a different color to represent its programs, iike orange for athletics and blue for arts.

Pro Tip: A good rule is to have one primary color, one or two secondary colors, and a few neutral colors like white, black, or gray for balance.

La Scuola International School takes a similar approach with its vibrant CTAs and content blocks.

Using Color to Improve Usability and Accessibility

When designing or relaunching your school website, you’ll want to make sure everyone can use it easily, including people who see colors differently or might have trouble reading small text. Here’s how colors can help make a website more user-friendly and open to everyone:

Color Contrast for Clear Reading

Imagine trying to read light gray text on a white background. It’s hard, right? High contrast between text and its background makes reading more manageable for everyone.

For most text, black-on-white works best, but if you're unsure, there are online tools, like those through AudioEye, to check if your color choices have enough contrast and pass accessibility standards.

Colors to Guide Users

Colors can also act like directional signs, guiding visitors to where they should go on your website. For example, buttons in a bright, attention-grabbing color can lead users to important pages like admissions or contact information. Just make sure these colors stand out from the rest of the site so users know exactly where to click, just like Kents Hill School has done with its admissions CTAs.

Avoiding Color-Only Instructions

Some people might not see colors the way you do. If your website says things like "Click the green button to learn more," someone who has trouble seeing green might not know what to do. Instead, use clear labels or icons along with colors to make instructions clear for everyone.

Keeping Colors Consistent

Consistency will help build a strong connection in people's minds between your school and its colors. This means you'll need to apply your school's style guide across your website, emails, social media, and even in your printed marketing materials.

Key Takeaway

Colors can communicate so much emotion. Blues, reds, greens, and yellows—they all have different meanings, and using them strategically in your school's website design will come down to supporting your brand and applying them thoughtfully to CTAs, content blocks, and more. Find the balance between brand, creativity, and accessibility, and your site's design will be likely to inspire and engage!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Connor has spent the last decade within the field of marketing and communications, working with independent schools and colleges throughout New England. As Finalsite’s Senior Content Marketing Manager, Connor plans and executes marketing strategies and digital content across the web. A former photojournalist, he has a passion for digital media, storytelling, coffee, and creating content that connects.