How to Use the Principle of Design Contrast in Web Design

In web design, creating visually appealing and user-friendly websites is a top priority. One powerful tool in a designer’s arsenal is the use of contrast. Contrast can make or break a website’s aesthetics and functionality, influencing everything from readability to user engagement.

Web design is all about balancing aesthetics with useability, and the principle of design contrast is critical to achieving functional websites with hard-hitting visuals.

Contrast brings opposing visual elements together to create emphasis and style. In web design, it helps highlight text, links, videos, and branding and ensures any featured elements pop out from the background. 

The principle of design contrast can be implemented in various ways. Like anything in design, it comes down to intent.

In web design, intention usually starts with readability, useability, and accessibility. Effective web design prioritizes the user experience (UX) – visitors should immediately know how to navigate your website based on your use of design principles.

At the same time, web designers must still be able to pull off professional and aesthetic visuals. Like any visual form, they also need to incorporate elements that help tell a story to the viewer – at the core of which is the principle of design contrast.

Tools like WordPress Bedrock make it easy to control plug-in aspects, like the contrast of fonts and backgrounds. It’s worth trying different tools to find one that suits your needs and can help create the perfect website. 

Whether you’re a seasoned designer looking to refine your skills or a newcomer seeking to grasp the fundamentals, understanding these contrast principles will elevate your web design game. Let’s explore the six essential types of contrast and how to leverage them effectively in web design. 

Contrast plays a key role in enhancing the legibility of website text, ensuring that visitors can easily read and engage with the content. Elements like text size, color, and style contribute to creating a clear distinction that improves readability for all users. Effective design contrast is not only essential for meeting accessibility standards but also for elevating the overall user experience.

Jitbit, a help desk software provider, exemplifies this with their new homepage design. The top-fold immediately addresses the core product-market fit question, “Who is Jitbit built for?” through a bold, large-font heading. Transitioning text follows, showcasing the product’s various use cases in a clear, attention-grabbing font that is impossible to overlook.

Visual storytelling ends and begins with visual hierarchy. Contrast in web design grabs and directs the viewer’s attention, drawing their eyes to calls to action, promotions, or product pages. Manipulation of elements like color, size, and space all help communicate what’s most important.

The principle of design contrast also helps impart your branding to the viewer. Using specific typography or backgrounds for contrast creates a consistent brand experience. The use of color psychology provides emotional connection and symbolism. Areas like the company name and logo can all be memorable and easy to spot with effective design contrast. 

Vonage uses design contrast to cement its brand identity in users’ minds. The monochromatic theme is offset by pops of purple, pink, and orange in different gradients. Using this same palette and design across the website, logo, and footer gives the brand a consistent look that makes it instantly recognizable. This consistency ensures Vonage is the first company that comes to mind when customers are searching for solutions such as a VoIP phone service or messenger marketing solutions.

Legibility is only part of the user experience. Visitors also need to be able to find relevant links, buttons, and interactive content in an instant. Your web design should be functional and consistent across all devices, such as desktop and mobile.  

Using contrast to highlight website functionality is another crucial component to maintaining a high level of accessibility.

The most beautiful thing about colors is how they affect one another. The level of contrast between colors can make them indistinguishable, complementary, or clashing with one another. 

Bright colors can be loud and command attention when put against dark backgrounds. Likewise, dark colors are emboldened when paired with lighter background colors. Color contrast is crucial for maintaining readability on your website.

You don’t have to rely on only your own eyes or a blog maker. Use a color contrast calculator for reassurance. Accessibility organizations like WebAIM provide a free calculator so you can design inclusive and readable websites. The minimum ratio for compliance is 4.5:1 (higher is better).

Color contrast is also helpful for branding. If you want these elements to stand out, consider using complementary colors for logos and company names. Tools like the Wing’s Art Color wheel help you quickly identify complementary color pairings. 

The contrast of size is helpful for every facet of web design. Graphic images like logos and page headers can all be emphasized or minimized by size relativity. Size indicates importance and necessitates attention from the user.

In other words, size determines the hierarchy of every web page you design. What is your company trying to get every visitor to give heed to?

The below example from Apple makes good use of contrast in size. The marketing campaign copy is much bigger than any other text on the page – and the animated graphic reminding users it is nearly back to school time is even bigger.

Anyone shopping for a student will immediately head to Apple’s educational online store.

What other website components should you prioritize? CTA buttons like Buy Now, Subscribe, and Sign Up are typically at the top of the food chain. Make your CTA buttons bigger than other web page clickables and standard landing page font sizes.

In design, you can create contrast through space and position. When you arrange text, shapes, and other visual assets on a website, you create areas of positive and negative space. The positive sections are full of eye-drawing content. In comparison, negative space informs the user on where not to look.

Like all types of contrast, this can be subtle or demand attention. Poorly designed websites have little to no space contrast. Think of a 20th-century newspaper. In those days, space was maximized for efficiency – the only space generated came from headlines and images.

Website visitors prefer the obvious regarding functionality – don’t distract them with overcrowded design. Google is the master of space contrast. We have unlimited space on the Internet, so use it!

The contrast between foreground and background is essential in design. In many visual mediums, it informs perspective and creates a hierarchy for the viewer. Typically, the foreground has a sharp focus, while the background lacks hard lines.

For example, in a wide-format cinematography shot, the director can emphasize the landscape or the subject depending on how the lens is focused. You can imitate this effect in web design. For example, you can add blurred images as a background. This gives users a visual message but keeps their focus on the foreground information, like texts and CTA buttons. 

You can also create foreground and background contrast through the use of light. The above image from Expedia has been darkened, directing the viewer that it is secondary to the overlying text and “Learn more” button. 

Consider using dynamic backgrounds that can either accent or de-emphasize other design elements. For example, a background image could blur when the user’s pointer hovers over the area, highlighting a button. 

You can use tools like the new DDEV update to test dynamic contrast and optimize for all devices. You can create and test prototypes of your visual designs in a controlled local environment to see how different design elements and layouts work before implementing them on an actual website. This testing will ensure a seamless and consistent experience for your audience no matter how they access your website. 

In design, shapes are either geometric or free-flowing and irregular. The geometric shapes are instantly recognizable to viewers and can symbolize many things. For example, a circle may suggest the sun or moon, while a triangle may represent a mountain or pup tent. Apply these principles to logos and other web design components.

Contrast and similarity of shape and form help inform viewers of visual hierarchy. Users categorize or group assets based on shapes. For example, typography boxes communicate to website viewers what areas of the page are clickable, readable, or interactive.

You can use straight and rounded lines to create different aesthetics and emphasis. In the above example, we can’t help but draw our attention to the main difference in the design. It’s a fantastic method for enhancing the user experience.

Typography can contrast in color, size, and font style. Contrasting these elements creates a hierarchy of groupings. Typography is more relevant to web design than most other forms.

Carefully chosen, unique typography helps define brand identity. For typography in web design, usability and accessibility are always the priority. With typography, you can apply most of the other principles of design contrast, such as color, size, and shape. 

Each form of contrast lets you highlight and prioritize text-based content. For example, different-sized headers help make web pages and blog posts scannable for readers. You can also use 

Limiting yourself to one typeface with different fonts is a good rule of thumb. Use variables like size and boldness to create various font types for body text and buttons. And, to maintain legibility, try to stick with sans serif fonts for body text.

However, don’t be afraid to break this rule when appropriate. The below example from Thinkful uses a less readable serif font for the body while using sans serif for the header. They can do this by incorporating high color contrast between the background and the foreground text.

Design contrast is the backbone of web design. It communicates information to users much more quickly than other visual elements. The contrast of shape, color, size, and other elements lets you direct the viewer to what’s most important. 

In web design, contrast is also a tool for building highly navigable websites that are inclusive and accessible. Head to Envato Elements to find a wide selection of photos, graphics, and fonts and create contrast in your web designs.