Pastel colors. What comes to mind when you think of them?

Maybe it’s Easter eggs, or the color of the walls in your nursery when you were a baby. Maybe you think of vintage clothing and accessories, or the obsession with pastel home interiors and cars in the 1950’s and 60’s. Chances are, you don’t think of pastel colors in web design right off the bat.

Pastels are a unique and easily distinguishable group of colors. Essentially, they are a lighter-tinted version of the base colors. “Pastel” is often used interchangeably with words such as “light” or “pale” when describing certain shades of color: pale blue, light blue, pastel blue, as an example. No matter how you refer to them, pastel colors have many common denominators. They are low-intensity thanks to decreased saturation, making them easy on the eyes. The typical vibe of pastel colors is gentle, calm, and often nostalgic.

Though they are often used in many other areas of design, such as art or fashion, pastel colors can be tricky to work with when designing a website. At IML Company, we understand the challenge from firsthand experience. How do you make a peach color fit in beside baby blue? A powder-pink next to seafoam green? Should the colors be used in the background, or as an image overlay, or both?

Fortunately, there are resources available to find the answers to these questions and provide inspiration for your design. When experiencing designer’s block, a little research can go a long way. It isn’t about directly copying a specific design from somebody else; simply discovering how other designers have incorporated tricky color schemes into their websites can lead you to come up with your own unique ideas and get you un-stuck in your design.

Check out this article from designmodo to learn more about working with pastel colors in website design.