If you have been designing websites for awhile, you have no doubt learned that the easiest background (white) is often the most desirable for most applications. However, there are always going to be other options at your disposal. And while you as an experienced web designer will probably always favor subtle simplicity in what you create, there are always people out there designing websites with the craziest possible looks about them. Often, what happens when someone puts an especially bright background into a webpage, they know how to do things without really thinking through why they ever should. Hopefully, one or two of them will find this article, and will learn the error inherent in doing it that way.
A lot of early web designers see that they can customize the body of a webpage, and they consider this new knowledge as their excuse to actually do so. But of course, they do not choose a subtle, extremely light brown or taupe that might look really good. Usually they go with a deep blue, or a bright red, or some other ghastly shade. If you once flirted with a green background, you don’t have to raise your hand. You can just quietly nod, and remember the lessons that taught you. One real problem with a bright background is that it can lend itself to changing the color of your text and links.
Most links are a little bit brighter than your regular text, just in the hope that people will click on them more often if they are all noticeable and shiny. However, when the background itself is all gaudy, the text color itself is often the next thing to get “adjusted.” With very few exceptions, the only colors that should ever be used for the text of your webpages are black (about 80 percent of the time) and white (the other 20 percent). So don’t use green, orange or even blue.
