How to Choose Fonts and Colors for Your Website

The psychology behind colors

Every color triggers a feeling. This happens fast, often without visitors being fully aware. Red brings energy and urgency. It’s why you often see it used for limited-time offers and flash sales. Blue, on the other hand, signals trust and calm, making it a favorite for financial institutions and tech companies.

Colors guide users to act. A carefully chosen color palette can influence behaviors like clicking a button or trusting a service. Green is linked to growth and renewal, making it ideal for health and sustainability brands. Yellow radiates optimism, often used to grab attention in cheerful ways.

When building your website colors, think about what emotions you want visitors to feel. Are you creating excitement, offering reassurance, or inspiring creativity? Align your choices with the emotional response you want your brand to spark.

Cultural significance of colors

Colors don’t carry the same meaning everywhere. What feels positive in one culture could carry a different message elsewhere. Red, for example, stands for good fortune and celebration in China. In South Africa, it is associated with mourning and loss.

Global brands pay attention to these differences. They adapt color palettes to connect respectfully with diverse audiences. For example, a brand launching in Japan may lean toward white for its links to purity and simplicity. That same color might have a different effect elsewhere.

When building a website meant for a broad audience, cultural research matters. Avoid relying on assumptions. Instead, check how your chosen colors are perceived across different regions.

Making informed choices helps create designs that speak clearly, no matter where your audience is. By combining emotional cues with cultural awareness, your website colors do more than look good, they communicate the right message from the first click.

1. Start with a primary color

Begin by selecting one main color. This is the foundation of your design, the color most associated with your brand. A good primary color reflects both your company’s personality and the emotions you want to inspire.

If your brand is youthful and energetic, a bright orange or vibrant teal might fit. A serious and professional brand may lean into deep blues or rich charcoals. Think about your target audience. What will make them feel the way you want them to feel?

Once chosen, your primary color becomes the base for all design decisions across your website colors.

2. Apply the 60-30-10 rule

Balance is critical in design. A simple guideline is the 60-30-10 rule.

• 60% of your website should use the primary color. This might be backgrounds or large areas that need to feel consistent.
• 30% should feature a secondary color. This adds interest and helps break up the design, guiding the user's eye.
• 10% should be your accent color. This color is bold and noticeable, perfect for call-to-action buttons and highlights.

This structure keeps your website feeling balanced and intentional. It creates natural visual hierarchies without overwhelming the visitor.

3. Build a supporting palette

A strong design doesn’t stop with three colors. A good color palette usually includes a few more shades to handle different design needs.

Pick 3 to 5 secondary colors that complement your primary choice. These could be different shades or tints that bring variety without losing harmony.

Accent colors play a different role. These should stand out from the rest of the design to draw attention. Think of them as signposts that tell visitors where to click next.

Don’t forget about neutral tones. Soft grays, off-whites, and charcoal tones are important for backgrounds, text, and subtle elements. They create breathing space, keeping your layout clean and readable.

With the right mix of bold and neutral, your website colors will feel balanced and visually engaging.

4. Tips for light and dark mode compatibility

Today, users expect websites to perform well in both light and dark modes. Colors behave differently depending on the background.

Light colors that look bright on white might fade on black. Likewise, dark colors can feel heavy if not adjusted for lighter backgrounds.

Create dual color palettes. Use variants of your primary and secondary colors that hold their vibrancy and contrast across both modes. Adjust brightness and saturation where needed to keep the experience consistent.

By planning for both modes, you make sure your website fonts and website colors stay clear and inviting, no matter how your audience prefers to browse.

Color palette generators

Adobe Color is a favorite for many designers. It offers a color wheel where you can create combinations based on harmony rules. If you already have an image or logo, you can extract colors directly from it to keep your website colors consistent with your branding.

Coolors.co is another helpful platform. Hit the spacebar and it quickly generates random palettes for inspiration. Once you find a palette you like, lock in your favorite shades and tweak others. It also includes a built-in contrast checker, saving time during design checks.

Pinterest is another great source for fresh ideas — simply search for “color palettes” and browse collections based on moods, seasons, or industries.

Using these tools makes building your website color palette feel less like trial and error and more like a focused process.

Checking contrast and accessibility

Good design means thinking about everyone. Following WCAG guidelines, your text-to-background contrast should meet at least a 4.5:1 ratio for normal text. This ensures people with visual impairments can easily read your content.

Tools like the Coolors Contrast Checker let you test different color combinations quickly. Just input your text color and background color to see if they meet accessibility standards.

If you use Figma, install the A11Y plugin. It gives immediate feedback on your designs, helping you spot low-contrast elements before publishing.

For real-time checks, Chrome extensions like WhatFont or ColorZilla allow you to inspect and test website fonts and colors directly on live pages. These tools help confirm that your choices are not just attractive but also accessible.

A great website color palette does more than look good, it makes sure everyone can interact with your site comfortably.

How fonts influence user perception

Fonts send silent signals. A serif font, with its small strokes at the end of each letter, suggests tradition and professionalism. This is why banks, law firms, and luxury brands often prefer serif styles. They feel reliable and trusted.

Sans-serif fonts, by contrast, are clean and modern. Without extra flourishes, they offer clarity. Tech companies, startups, and lifestyle brands often use sans-serif fonts to show innovation and simplicity.

Script and decorative fonts bring flair. They look stylish but can easily become distracting. These fonts work best for logos or special headings, not for body text. Used in excess, they harm readability.

Choosing the right font pairing means thinking about how different font types play together. Combining a traditional serif with a modern sans-serif can create balance, blending heritage with freshness.

Aligning fonts with brand personality

Fonts should match the mood of your website. A playful site needs friendly, rounded fonts. A corporate platform calls for sharper, more structured typography. Fonts set expectations before a word is even read.

A modern tech brand often leans into sans-serif fonts like Helvetica or Roboto. They are crisp, efficient, and easy to read on screens of all sizes. In contrast, a luxury jewelry brand might favor elegant serif fonts like Baskerville or Garamond. These fonts convey sophistication and a sense of tradition.

The choice of website fonts should mirror the emotions you want to evoke. Consistency across headers, subheaders, and body text builds trust. It tells visitors that details matter.

Good typography makes a site feel thoughtful and polished. It gives users quiet confidence that they are in the right place. When combined with smart website colors, fonts transform how a brand is seen and remembered.

1. Font pairing best practices

Great typography starts with restraint. Limit your site to 2–3 fonts. More than that creates clutter and confusion. A clean font pairing gives your pages a structured, professional look.

Use one font for headings and another for body text. The heading font should draw attention without overpowering the content. It needs to guide users from section to section. The body font, in contrast, must be calm and steady, built for long reading.

Hierarchy matters. Vary font weights: bold for headlines, regular for paragraphs, light for captions. These subtle shifts make the page easy to scan and improve flow. When weights and sizes change predictably, users find information faster without feeling lost.

Pair fonts with different personalities but shared tone. A geometric sans-serif like Montserrat can balance a traditional serif like Merriweather. Contrast in style adds energy, while consistency in mood keeps it professional.

2. Readability over trends

Trendy fonts can grab attention, but they don’t always serve the user. Fancy scripts or ultra-thin lettering might look impressive in design showcases but fall flat on screens.

Prioritize legibility. Choose website fonts that remain sharp and easy to read across devices — mobile, desktop, and tablet. Simple, clear fonts reduce eye strain and support better UX.

Text should be readable at smaller sizes. Avoid fonts with extreme strokes or intricate detailing that get lost on compact screens. Good design balances form and function, ensuring content looks good and reads well.

Stick with classic choices that are proven to work. Consistency builds trust. While it’s tempting to chase design trends, clear communication always wins.

3. Recommended tools for fonts

Choosing fonts is easier with the right tools. Google Fonts offers a wide library of free, web-optimized fonts. You can filter by category, language support, or popularity. This ensures you pick a style that fits your site’s goals.

FontPair.co is another useful resource. It suggests font pairings based on what works well together, helping you avoid awkward combinations.

Want to see what fonts other sites are using? Install the WhatFont Chrome extension. Hover over text, and it instantly reveals the font family and size. It's a simple way to get inspiration from sites you admire.

Smart choices in typography bring professionalism to your website. The right website fonts, combined with a cohesive color palette, leave visitors with a strong, positive impression — and encourage them to stay longer.

Text readability guidelines

Readable text starts with the right size. Fonts should never be smaller than 16px for body text. This keeps content comfortable to read across all devices.

Contrast is just as important. Avoid low-contrast combinations like light gray on white or yellow on white. These make content difficult to see, especially for users with vision impairments.

Follow high-contrast ratios to improve clarity. WCAG guidelines recommend a minimum of 4.5:1 for standard text and 3:1 for large text. Strong contrast improves legibility and ensures that information stands out, even in poor lighting conditions.

Clear, easy-to-read website fonts combined with smart color contrast support a better experience for every visitor, not just those with perfect vision.

Color accessibility best practices

Color can’t be the only way to communicate important information. Some users experience color blindness, making it hard to distinguish certain shades. For example, red and green might appear similar to those with color vision deficiency.

Use labels, patterns, and icons alongside color cues. Buttons should have both color and text. Error messages should be marked with symbols, not just a red outline.

Always test your color palette across different devices and lighting environments. A color that looks fine on a bright monitor may disappear on a dim screen or in dark mode. Testing ensures your website colors hold up under real-world conditions.

Accessibility builds better websites. It improves usability for everyone and helps your site reach a wider audience, a goal every brand should aim for.

Airbnb

Airbnb keeps its design clean and welcoming. Their color palette is minimalist; mostly whites and soft grays, with strategic pops of coral pink. The accent color draws attention to calls-to-action without overpowering the rest of the design.

Their website fonts are equally thoughtful. Airbnb uses a custom sans-serif typeface that feels modern but friendly. The balance between simple colors and approachable typography creates an inviting experience for users booking their next stay.

By limiting colors and keeping typography clean, Airbnb makes their site easy to use. Users can focus on what matters, listings and experiences, without unnecessary distractions.

YouTube

YouTube is known for its bold use of red. Red dominates their color palette, appearing in the logo and subscribe buttons. This choice isn't random. Red triggers excitement and urgency, perfect for encouraging user action.

Their overall design relies on a neutral backdrop, lots of white and dark gray, so that the red stands out even more. It’s a limited color palette but used with precision.

YouTube’s typography sticks with a clean, sans-serif font that performs well across devices. The font is simple, scalable, and highly readable. Together, their website fonts and colors support a clear, action-driven user journey.

Atlassian

Atlassian takes a different route with a more structured color system. They use a set of primary colors supported by a range of neutrals and semantic colors. Each color has a purpose, from indicating alerts to highlighting key actions.

Their typography sticks with a no-nonsense sans-serif font. It’s straightforward, allowing the complex tools and dashboards they offer to remain clear and functional.

By combining a flexible color palette with highly readable fonts, Atlassian keeps their interface usable and professional, even for advanced users.

1. Overcomplicating the design

Using too many fonts or clashing colors makes a site feel messy. Visitors won’t know where to look. Stick to two or three fonts and a simple color palette. Consistency keeps your site organized and helps users find information easily.

Too much variety creates visual noise. If every heading is a different font or every button a different color, the design feels chaotic. Aim for clarity instead of complexity.

2. Ignoring accessibility

Design isn't complete without accessibility. Poor contrast and hard-to-read fonts lock out users. Light gray text on a white background or overly thin fonts create barriers.

Choose website fonts with strong readability and colors that meet accessibility standards. Following basic contrast guidelines ensures that your site is usable for everyone, including people with visual impairments.

3. Following trends blindly

Trends can be tempting, but they aren’t always practical. Ultra-minimalist fonts or neon color schemes may look good in design showcases but fail in real-world use.

Focus on function first. Make sure your website colors and website fonts reflect your brand and make reading easy. Trendy choices that confuse or frustrate users will only drive them away.

Solid design lasts longer than passing styles. Prioritize usability, and your site will stay effective no matter what’s popular.