The look of your legal blog is in many ways just as important as the information it contained. After all, the way your site looks is going to make a huge difference between an actively engaged audience and one that, “comes, pukes and leaves.”
One of the great joys (to me, at least) of beginning a new online legal marketing venture is trying to figure out what it’s going to look like when it’s all said and done. But it gets frustrating because I don’t always have a good eye for the way colors go together. That, and the color schemes being used online today are so much more varied and complex than in the past.
I could go for the standard blue that you see in most law firm blogs, but it’s boring and doesn’t reflect much in the way of personality. Visitors to your blog need to have a visual cue to keep them interested, and as a way to remember your blog above all others.
There are a ton of places to start, but I often get hung up on the colors to use on the site. I’ve got a marked preference for earth tones, and enjoy palettes that make me feel calm. After all, I spend a ton of time online and don’t need one more site to make me anxious.
My first stop for inspiration is usually ColourLovers, a terrific site for getting ideas about color palettes. Just check out some of the top colors and palettes, and you’re off to the races.
My next stop is Kuler, a site I fell in love with about a year ago when I was hunting for color schemes for one of my legal blogs. Kuler is filled with hundreds of color palettes, and you can save the ones you like best.
Once you find a few options, show them to your graphic designer. This will help the designer put together some header ideas for you to review. You’re more likely to find something you really like once you’ve given the designer some ideas to work with, and color helps a lot.
Of course, there are times when you’ve got an image and just want to get a color palette to work with. It’s kind of putting the cart before the horse, but we’ve all been there before.
If your image is online already, head over to the DeGraeve Color Palette Generator and plug in the URL of the image. The site will spit out the colors contained in the image. Pick out the one you like, then head back over to Kuler and create a color palette using their handy tool.
Image sitting on your hard drive? No worries. Jeff Minard provides this very handy little color palette generator that allows you to upload the image and figure out what colors it contains, down to the HEX code. Once you’re armed with this information, you can go back to Kuler.
These aren’t the only sites out there by a long shot, but they are some of the ones I find most helpful. Bear in mind that this is not a replacement for an awesome web designer or graphics guru – it’s a quick-and-dirty way of launching your legal blogging efforts so you can get on with the task of connecting with your audience in a meaningful way.
