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Have you ever tried to squint your eyes to read text on horrid colors like neon green, bright red, or other background colors from hell?
This colorful background style appears on many relic websites, dating back to the 90s or 00s. At the beginning of the Internet, many webmasters tried to create websites as fancy as possible with every color combination they could think of, without thinking much about user experience.
The results are many hellish websites with content that is impossible to comprehend.
Over time, after much trial and error, we slowly arrived at today’s website style, focusing on best practices like website performance, and visual hierarchy,…
As you can observe, most websites nowadays use white as background color. There is no surprise that white is so ubiquitous. It’s pleasing to look at and can match almost every color. It makes text, and images easy to look at.
A plain white page isn’t distracting – it lets the content take center stage. And white is familiar, since we’re so used to reading books and papers printed in white. So psychologically, it feels comfortable.
But because of its popularity, a white background can sometimes become dull. Say what you want about the old website’s style, but you must admit that was a fun time, right? There is no restraint, people did not take the design too seriously. Every website has its personality, maybe it’s not the best for users but it’s still pretty awesome.
Modern websites may perform better, but along with the process of modernizing and following best practices, we may lose a little soul.
Suppose you want to spice up your design with a little personality or enhance your brand presence while maintaining website design best practices for readability. In that case, you can try these colors instead.
1. Light gray (#F0F0F0, #F5F5F5)
There’s a softer alternative to pure white that could improve the user experience – light gray.
Pure white backgrounds can cause eye fatigue over long browsing sessions. The high contrast makes the text pop but is also harsh on the eyes. Enter light gray: a subtle tweak that retains clarity while feeling gentler. Shades like #F0F0F0 provide plenty of differentiation without overwhelming sensitivities.
Beyond readability, light gray backgrounds offer some hidden benefits. They convey a sense of warmth and sophistication, setting a calming, professional tone. Gray also pairs seamlessly with various branding palettes.
Accessibility remains top-notch too. All content passes color contrast tests with flying colors. Gray maintains universal support across devices and mediums. Users won’t encounter unexpected rendering issues either.
For site owners, light gray backgrounds are a simple way to feel fresh and modern without a total redesign. It’s the perfect soft refresh.
2. Ghost white (#F3F4F6, #F4F5F9, #F5F5F7)
One of the most common substitutes for pure white as background color is ghost white. It’s a light grey color with a little bluish tint.
It has a neutral feel of grey color while connoting peace, tranquility, and trust with a little bluish touch. That’s why ghost white is used a lot for technology products.
Ghost white is also used a lot in SAAS products as it provides a good content hierarchy and is extremely useful for design with complex structures. If you have a container with a white background, you can emphasize it by placing it on a ghost white or light grey background.
3. Pale blue
Blue is always welcomed as a website’s color. As a matter of fact, blue is the most favorite color in the world. Maybe it’s because most of the earth’s color is blue and blue means water – one of the most important elements for life to survive.
So if your brand color happens to have blue color as the primary or the secondary color, you can consider using pale blue as the background color instead of white.
4. Beige
Beige is a safe, neutral color. You may see it a lot more in interior design. It’s a light brown color with a delicate creamy shade.
The color may be a little more grey with a yellowish tint or dull sandy fawn. It’s a warm color, often used instead of white for its comforting nature.
Beige is suitable for luxury, decor, fashion, wellness, art, and food brands for it gives off elegance, smooth, calm, and warm feelings. Other fields can still use beige as a background color if they want to appear more approachable
5. Other pale pastels (pink, purple or green…)
Pastel colors can be amazing choices to give your website a new personality that aligns with your brand. Soft pastel tones like very light pink, blue, or green in the 80-95% lightness range can feel fresh and modern when used judiciously as background or accent.
When adjusting the saturation and lightness to create pastel colors, you can use the HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) color model. Here are some specific parameters you can consider adjusting:
- Saturation: Decrease the saturation value to reduce color intensity and achieve a more muted look. Values between 10% and 50% often work well for pastel colors, but you can adjust it based on your desired effect.
- Lightness: Increase the lightness value to make the color lighter and softer. Values between 60% and 90% are commonly used for pastel shades, but again, this can be adjusted to suit your preferences.
6. Gradients
Gradual transitions from white to off-white or pastel colors create depth and visual interest.
While gradients may seem a subtle addition, their impact on user experience is anything but minor. A carefully crafted linear gradient could add just the right amount of visual interest to a design. However, if not implemented with precision, they risk undermining the very usability they aim to enhance.
Readability must always be the top priority in any interface. Even the gentlest color transition could confuse or tire the eyes over extended viewing. Ensuring sufficient color contrast between text and background across all viewing conditions is critical. Accessibility also depends on consistent legibility for users of varying abilities.
Distraction poses another potential pitfall. Though meant to draw the eye smoothly, gradients may inadvertently divert focus from the core content and call to action.
7. Translucent overlays
A 20-40% blur overlay on another base background, like tinted glass, can subtly shift the tone and add personality.
It’s a technique to bring in the Glassmorphism UI style. Drawing influence from the real world, Glassmorphism overlays elements with a sense of ethereal depth. Through softened edges and subtle transparency, it brings in a frosted-glass effect.
While this style can grant beauty, you must be careful. Because it can easily cause readability problems across websites. The best practice for using this effect is only using it on some elements of the products, like headers or hero sections while mixing with other design styles.
Why you should always start with black and white!
In the complex world of user interface design, sometimes the simplest solutions unlock the most brilliance. And for laying a strong foundation, you can’t beat the timeless duo of black and white. The combination provides impeccable contrast for readability and simplicity.
You should always start your design with black, white, and grey. Only then, do things like layout, spacing, fonts, and navigation become clearer. You can easily see what works and what needs fixing. Distractions from colors don’t get in the way.
You should only add colors after the basic design works well. Colors are there to emphasize important things, not fix problems. Make sure the layout, text, and navigation work seamlessly first before worrying about colors. Colors should highlight key parts of the experience, not be used to hide weaknesses.
Tips for white-substitute colors
Here are a few things to keep in mind when using white-substitute colors as backgrounds:
Readability: White-substitute color backgrounds can affect how easy it is to read text on top of them. Lighter shades may require darker text like black to ensure good contrast. Make sure the text is clear and legible.
Backgrounds should be … well … just backgrounds: The main purpose of background is to bring forth the content it holds. So it does not make sense when you want to make the background too prominent. The focus should be on the text, images, buttons, etc rather than the background itself. It should recede into the background as the name suggests.
Branding: The shade of off-white used should fit with your brand’s overall color scheme and vibe. Warmer or cooler tones can influence the mood, so pick one that aligns with your branding guidelines.
If confused, just go with black and white: When in doubt, simpler is better. Black and white backgrounds are a safe default choice that most people find easy to use. Stick to those if you’re unsure about an off-white tone working for your needs.
