Light vs. Dark Websites - What should you use?

There has been a lot of discussion since the spawn of web design about what colour schemes are better. Light colour themes? Or, dark colour themes? Here's my opinion on the matter.

Firstly, ill just go a head and say it. I do, slightly, prefer light coloured web themes over dark ones.

Light Themed Websites
I think lightly themed websites, ignoring the ones full of bright multi-colours look very professional. I am talking about the typical plain websites with a lot of white space. If you think about, virtually all the major big professional websites such as Amazon, Google, eBay, PayPal, etc (the list can go on forever) use a very light colour scheme and are full of white space (which will be discussed in a future article in this blog).

I think light themed websites are better suited to websites which needs to convince their visitor that it can be trusted. For example, PayPal and eBay deal with customers' financial information such as credit cards, bank accounts, etc. If the website used a dark colour scheme, naturally, the website would look 'dodgy'.

I think lightly coloured themed websites, with a lot of white space, are better when used with websites like online shops, business homepages, company websites and so on.

Dark Themed Websites
Dark themed websites actually look quite cool. I think websites that use dark colour schemes are better suited to entertainment related websites. This includes gaming sites, film websites, online gaming websites, etc. One of the largest and most popular gaming websites on the internet (GameSpot.com) uses a dark colour scheme and it pulls it off very well while at the same time looking incredibly professional.

Dark themed websites also look good on 'underground' sites such as small message boards with online friends and any other websites that are supposedly cool.

Conclusion
If your thinking about what colour scheme to use for your website then think about what was mentioned in this post. Think about what type of website you have. And then honestly think about what would suit it best.

At the end of the day don't be afraid to experiment. You never know what might actually turn out good.

Coming Soon: The White Space - Good or Bad?, Great Web Design Resources and more PhotoShop Top Tips.

Keep checking back for updates.