I've read about energy saving colours in web design - what's that all about?
A number of reports came out in 2007 suggesting that if Google were to change its background colour to black that huge energy savings would be made worldwide (for further details see Treehugger)
The reasoning behind this is that, on a cathode ray tube monitor, it takes more energy to display an all white screen. If you use a black background on your website, then, you can play your part in reducing energy consumption (however small).
This led Mark Ontkush to do various tests to come up with an energy-friendly colour palette, offering a range of five colours (plus white as a foreground colour).
We, at boduweb, are more than happy to design your site based on the Emergy-c colour palette, but there are some valid considerations to be made.
First amongst these is the fact that this energy saving device works for cathode ray tube monitors, an outdated technology that, while accounting for about 25% of monitors worldwide, is used primarily in developing regions like China and Latin America.
Every little helps, though, so the above argument isn't necessarily a reason not to follow energy-saving colour design. Another important consideration, though, is readability. Tests show that it's more difficult to read white text on black, rather than black on white. So, you may unintentionally make visitors to your website stay longer with their monitors and desktops turned on - or you may drive them away with strained and sore eyes, hostile to whatever your website is about!
So, the jury is out on energy saving colours. If they fit for your website vision, then they come recommended.
A more concrete eco-friendly choice in your website design might be to choose a 'green' web hosting company with which to host your site.