Color scheme

[TSchumm]

my forum/site hasn't been launched yet so i wanted to ask a quick? about color schemes. my sites colors are white, black, and orange. i like how the site looks now and doesn't hurt the eyes too mch.

my forum, however, for right now, is a black background w/ orange text. it goes along well with the site, but do you think this will distract visitors and make them not post?

also, if i were to change it to something else.. what should i change it to?

help!

[abbeyvet]

This is just my personal opinion, but I would high tail it right out of there with that colour combination, it would just be too hard on the eyes.

I would really be inclined to keep the orange and black backgrounds to heads and forum titles and so on, and stick with black on white for the posts, it will make it a lot more useable even if it does compromise somewhat on the look.

It's hard enough to get a forum going, you don't want to risk anything that might put people off.

[TSchumm]

i agree. thanks for your post. what color scheme do you think might go well?

[Casethejoint]

That orange/black combo sounds like a recipe for a headache 0_o. Are there sets of colours that can be suggested by your forum's topic, just to get you thinking?

[rogerd]

Does your community lean a certain way? Gamers boards, for example, tend to have dark color schemes; business boards, lighter ones.

In general, I prefer dark text on a light background, but not high contrast black on white. I'd go for black (or another dark text color) on a light background - gray, blue, etc. Since your colors are black, white, and orange (Happy Halloween, by the way ;)), perhaps you could mix orange and white to get a pastel background for the text. Or, rather than introduce a different color, just use a light gray for the background and your site colors for the trim.