Colours for website backgrounds

[Xx-Vicky-xX]

Right randomly i have decided to make a website (i started it 2 years ago but it all went wrong and i gave up but now i would like to start it back up) well i am having trouble deciding on a colour for the background.

I asked dad and he said pastel colours like baby blue/baby pink/pastel green/cream/silver etc and ive looked at various shades of colours like this but im not keep on them. I want it to look professional so i dont want bright colours that are to in your face and look like a little 4 year old has done it but i cant decide so i would appreciate ideas.

[Chloe O'brien]

Pastel colours are not a bad Idea Vicky. I had to design a webpage for the project at work I was involved with two years ago and one of the reasons that pastel are used is that these colours are more user friendly and they are less likely to cause a user to suffer fits and seziures than websites with bright colours.

[Abi]

White is always a good base colour. Then build up your website with another colour, in the titles, borders, etc, in different shades. That gives a professional feel to it.

[Katy]

when i did my research at school years ago for nmy graphics project i just had a light (Man City) Blue which was good as it was really plain but had a hint of colour, the only thing was it felt a bit cold if you know what i mean.

[Abigail]

It depends on what your website will be about. If its about heavy metal music then pastel colours won't really be suitable. If its about fluffy pink rabbits then they probably will. Rubbish examples but you get my drift. Think about your target audience.

If you're using HTML there is a long list of colour hex here http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colornames.asp If you click on the colour name it will show you a web page that has the coloured background so you can see what it will look like without faffing around saving and uploading then editing again if it isn't right.