Web Design - Use a Good Font and Background Color Combination to Improve Reada

[Dominick Arnold]

You want to make sure you use a font and background color that's
easily readable. Certain color combinations are better than others.
Choose the wrong combination, and you may frustrate visitors and drive
them away. But a good color combination can make the reading
experience better.
For instance, if you choose a color combination such as yellow text on
a white background, the text will be hard to read. Web site visitors
may give up, not bother reading it, and move on to the next site. Or
if they decide to read it, they'll have to highlight the text with
their mouse cursor so the text will be visible.
A good rule of thumb is to choose a font color that's opposite of the
background color. An example would be black text on a white
background. Black text on a white background is used a lot because
it's easy to read.
Another example could be violet text on a green background.
You can use a formula to calculate which color combination works best.
This is a formula I learned in a multimedia course back in school. The
formula assumes you know the red, green, and blue (RGB) value of a
color.
To find out the RGB value, one way is to load up your Paint program
and choose the colors you want in there. When you choose a color, it
will show you the red, green, and blue values.
To use the formula, first you pick a color for your background. Then
you subtract each red, green, and blue value by 255. Then you take the
absolute value of the difference.
For example, if you have an RGB value of (255, 0, 255) for your
background, then your font color will have an RGB value of (0, 255,
0). Each value was subtracted by 255. But one of them results in -255.
The absolute value of it is taken, which is 255.