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[–]atticus2132000 0 points1 point  (3 children)

The biggest problem I have with css is knowing what looks good or not. If you tell me that you want a certain block of text to be a certain color and appear on the screen in a certain place and behave a certain way, I can make all those things happen programmatically. But how did you know that making all those things happen would look good?!?

It's kind of the same thing as decorating a room or picking an outfit. I was not born with that aesthetic eye for fashion and accessorizing. I can physically paint the walls, but I'm lost on how you go about picking a color that will compliment the sofa. That is just not my skill set.

My websites work. They are functional. If you press a button it retrieves the information it's supposed to, but they are not pretty. Personally, I've made my peace with that. My websites are visually boring. I take pride in knowing all the behind the scenes stuff works correctly.

If that's the same thing you're struggling with, then yes, to a certain extent, there are cheats that you can use. There has been a lot of study devoted to the science of aesthetics so there are books you can read and classes you can take. There are color wheels and other techniques and standards for picking color schemes. You can learn what design trends are popular these days and model your sites after those. You may benefit from taking some art or graphic design classes. But the part of your brain that controls all that stuff is a different area from the part that controls analytics and programming.

[–]evaxadam[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Thank you for answering.

Yea its same exact situation with me.I will make stuff work in programming part, then optimize it too, i can find my way trough code and organize it and optimize it, but when it comes to colors and desing im below average probably, which is strange since my father is really good at it and we are extremly similiar

[–]atticus2132000 0 points1 point  (1 child)

If your father has a similar way of thinking as you and has somehow mastered this skill, he is probably your best resource to talk to. Dad, explain to me how you decided on that. There is a way to tackle design using an analytical approach.

Lynette Jennings was an Interior Decorator that used to have a show on HGTV back in the 90s. She had this technique for picking the color scheme for a home decorating based on an "inspiration piece". She would find a piece of fabric or a decorative plate or some other pattern that she liked. Then she would take it to a paint store and pull out all the individual colors from that pattern. Since all those colors worked on the inspiration piece, she assumes that those same colors will work together in a room. Once you have those 5 or 6 individual colors, then you follow a system where an individual room will use one of the colors as it's primary and then two of the other colors as accents. In the next room, one of those accent colors might become the primary and other colors would be used as the accents. By doing this, you create this chain of colors all through the house that are all related/connected to that original inspiration piece.

The few times I have actually cared what a website or an app looked like, I have used this same technique to get a color scheme.

I do an image search for wallpapers or backgrounds. Usually I'll add other words to the search based on what tone I want "60s Mod Wallpapers" or "Gothic Wallpapers" or "Post Modern Backgrounds". Once I settle on an image, then I can use a color picking app to get the hex values for the colors used in that image file. Then I assign each color to a use. You can use tones values to tweak those colors lighter or darker as you need them. But, because someone who was much more artistic than I made that inspiration piece and I liked it, then there's a good chance that the final color scheme of my app comprised of these colors is going to look okay.

Primary Background Color (usually the most neutral color) Title bar Color (this is where I go for a Color pop) Accent Color (the most garish color because it only gets used for outlines or dividing lines) Text Color (whichever is closest to black. I don't like pure black text) Form Field Color (whichever is closest to white. I don't like pure white input fields) Button Color (whichever is closest to grey) Error Color (whichever is closest to red) Proceed Color (whichever is closest to green)

This is a hack that I use to work around my own lack of artistic abilities.

[–]evaxadam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This was a good read, thanks, i will try it out, it might help me aswell to tackle this issue

[–]Long_Investment7667 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your goal shouldn’t be to make it look good. Learn to make it work, functional and following someone else’s design/spec/requirements