Case Study
Lets take a look at a website that uses what appears to be a monochromatic color scheme. Below is a screenshot of NitWits: Lice Treatment Remedies, Products, Services (http://www.liceinfo.net/).

Deconstructing color used on other websites is a great tool for learning about color schemes. In this case, we will deconstruct the colors of this website using two tools, Red Alt – I Like Your Colors and Adobe Photoshop.
Using Red Alt – I Like Your Colors online tool
Red Alt is a very simple tool to use. Go to the website, scroll down and input the web address you’d like to analyze. Please not that Red Alt only analyzes the CSS and HTML and does not take colors from images. Therefore it won’t represent all the colors in the scheme. What it is good for is to see the EXACT hex code used for that color on the site.
Results for www.liceinfo.net from Red Alt – I Like Your Colors:
The colors found with Red Alt’s tool will give a good overview of the colors used on a website. However, it does not analyze colors in images. In order to get the proper color scheme you will need to analyze a screen shot of the site.
Using Photoshop to Analyze a Color Scheme
I always like to double check a website’s color scheme using Adobe Photoshop. It is very simple to do. Simply grab a screen shot of the website you want to analyze and put that image into Photoshop. Then take your eye-dropper and select the main colors of the site. Save these colors to your swatches. When you’re done adding colors, go back to your swatches, click on each color and write down the HEX code.

Using both Photoshop and Red Alt – I Like Your colors online tool I came up with a 7 swatch color scheme for NitWits. I placed the monochromatic colors at the top. Then I added the yellow (mainly used on text) and red (used for cart buttons and worn by the people displayed on the homepage).
Conclusion:

Notice that it isn’t a perfect monochromatic color scheme since it also includes yellow (on the text). Yellow is right next green on the color wheel. Therefore we’d describe NitWit’s color scheme as an analogous combination. There is also some red on NitWit’s website. Red is directly across from green on the color wheel. Designers call colors that are ‘opposite’ from each other complementary colors. You can see how the complementary red shirts in the photograph jump out? Using a hint of complementary color on a website that is mostly monochromatic can be a nice touch. Though monochromatic is easy to use, it can be boring. If a site uses all three – monochromatic, analogous, and complementary, the design world calls it a triad color scheme.
Works Cited
Chapman, Cameron. “Color Theory For Designers, Part 2: Understanding Concepts And Terminology – Smashing Magazine.” Smashing Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2011. <http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/02/color-theory-for-designers-part-2-understanding-concepts-and-terminology/>.
“Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com.” Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2011. <dictionary.reference.com/>.
