Choosing the right complementary color palette is crucial for creating an aesthetically pleasing and functional website design. When using gold as a primary color, the ideal complementary colors will allow gold’s warm, luxurious qualities to shine while adding visual interest and vibrancy to the overall scheme.
Quick Answer
The best colors to pair with gold are deep, rich tones like royal purple, burgundy, deep blue, forest green, and black. Lighter tones like cream, beige, light gray, and white also complement gold well. Avoid pairing gold with warm, clashing tones like orange or yellow.
The Psychology of Color and Why It Matters
Color psychology plays an important role in website design. Certain colors evoke certain moods, emotions, and meanings to viewers. When colors are coordinated effectively, they can work cohesively to create an appropriate aesthetic and help communicate a brand’s core values.
Gold is commonly associated with wealth, prestige, luxury, achievement, quality, and sophistication. It has an energizing, warm, and optimistic effect. To choose ideal complementaries for gold, it’s important to consider which hues will enhance or detract from these qualities.
Choosing Complementary Colors for Gold
Complementary colors sit opposite each other on the color wheel. However, true complements like red and green can sometimes clash when placed side by side. To find more aesthetically pleasing complements, it’s best to choose hues adjacent to a color’s direct complement.
For gold websites, purple is an excellent adjacent complement. Purple represents luxury, creativity, and imagination. Deep royal purples in particular convey richness and elegance that complements gold nicely without competing.
Burgundy is another great option, providing the same depth and luxury as purple while feeling a bit warmer and more sophisticated. Deep blues and forest greens are also solid choices, as they create pleasing contrast while maintaining an elegant, upscale feel.
Using Tones and Shades
Using different tones and shades of complementary colors is a great way to add depth and visual interest. Light tints like cream, beige, light gray, and white work beautifully with gold, acting as soft complements that don’t overpower. Adding black brings sleek sophistication and draws out gold’s luxurious glow.
When combining colors:
- Use rich, deep shades of complementary colors for elements like headers, footers, and accents.
- Implement light tints for backgrounds, page content, and negative space.
- Add black as a neutral balancing element and for typography.
This creates a layered, dynamic color scheme with visual separation between elements.
Colors to Avoid
Some colors are jarring complements for gold that detract from its desired effect:
- Bright Orange: Too similar in tone, clashes and competes
- Neon Yellow: Too loud, garish
- Hot Pink: Clashes, doesn’t suit elegant golden hue
- Mint Green: Feels dated
- Bright Red: Overpowers
These colors conflict with and diminish the sophisticated, luxurious impression gold aims to impart.
Example Color Combinations
Here are some example gold and complementary color combinations to inspire your own stylish schemes:
| Color Scheme | Sample | |
|---|---|---|
| Gold & Royal Purple | ||
| Gold & Forest Green | ||
| Gold & Burgundy | ||
| Gold & Cream | ||
| Gold & Charcoal |
Using Multiple Complements
Feel free to combine several complementary hues for extra depth and dimension. Just ensure there is enough variation between tones and adequate negative space so colors don’t begin to clash and overwhelm the gold.
Some stunning triad combinations include:
- Gold, royal purple, black
- Gold, burgundy, forest green
- Gold, navy blue, cream
- Gold, deep teal, light gray
Conclusion
When selecting complementary colors for gold, choose rich, luxurious tones like purple, green, burgundy and blue. Using lights, darks, and multiple complements layered strategically will create a glamorous, stylish color palette. Avoid bright, clashing colors like orange, yellow and red. With the right complements, gold can impart elegance and sophistication to any website’s design.
Now that you understand the basics for choosing colors that work with gold, have fun exploring palette options for your next glitzy, glamorous web project!
