The colors you choose when you design a website are as important as any of the other design choices you make. It doesn’t take a whole rainbow of colors to produce a stunning and beautiful web design, but it does take careful selection and judicious application of the colors. The collection of website designs below aim at those designed with either only 2 colors or at least with two main colors and a few subsequent colors. They are organized into different 2-color schemes: black and white, complementary colors, corporate 2-color designs, and more. As you scroll through these sites, notice how just (mostly) two colors can produce beautiful designs.

 

Black and White Designs

The most basic of color choices are black and white, but they can still convey a wide range of design elements. Here are a few elegant web designs that use nothing but black and white.

DYKC

J Bradford Dillon

Bureau of Workplace Interruptions

ReHybrid

Stay Decent

Postmachina

Pierrat

Fizy Videomusic

Kardo Ayoub

Established NYC

 

Complementary Colors

The color wheel provides a look at complementary colors that often work very well together. It’s all based on color theory, which explains why the following two-color web designs work so well together. Those colors opposite from each other on the color wheel are called "complementary colors" and work together nicely: red complements green, blue complements orange, and purple complements yellow.

Uemitoezcan

Rocky Creek Winery

Nature’s Table

Abrigo

BV Arrows

UD on Campus

Design was Here

Groupe Reflect

Your Web Job

 

Corporate Two-Color Design

Once you know about color theory and color design, you’ll start to see it everywhere. Big corporations know all about this and their websites reflect it.

Amazon

Best Buy

Whole Foods

 

Other Inspiring Two-Color Websites

Once you know the rules of the color wheel, you can break them creatively. Not every two-color site slavishly follows the rules, but the designs can still be bold and inspiring.

Bookish

Redesigned

Shelton Fleming

Robin Uleman

Cabure

Hard Graft

Happy Cog

Kern and Burn

Belong

Martin Balhar

From the Couch

Ben the Body Guard

Ploc Media

Quazar

Right to Left

Find any favorites in the list above? Did I miss any 2-color or mostly 2-color website designs that should have been included in this collection?

 

About the author:

Tara Hornor has a degree in English and has found her niche writing about marketing, advertising, branding, graphic design, and desktop publishing. She writes for PrintPlace.com, an online printing company that offers postcards, posters, brochure printing, postcard printing, and more printed marketing media. In addition to her writing career, Tara also enjoys spending time with her husband and two children.