Feng Shui Your Blog With Simplicity, Colour & Balance

Apply Feng Shui principles to your blog to create a positive atmosphere for your visitors and  build a beautiful place for you to unleash your creative juices.

Design your blog around three important elements of simplicity, colour and balance.

So can Feng Shui practices be used in Web Sites I hear you ask. Why not? It can be applied to your environment, health and love life so surely the same principles can be applied to your web site making it more appealing to it’s users.

Your site is a virtual place of business. Feng shui principles you would use in an office or your home can be applied to your website just as easily and effectively.

Simplicity ~ Less Is More

From the first second a visitor enters your website they are assessing how it feels and their thoughts will set their first impression. Their mind takes a journey through your virtual business premises as it would if you had a physical business location. Consider your emotions and thoughts about…

• Free space (on a web page) – do you feel as if you have the freedom to explore, or do you feel crowded. Your site needs to allow the positive energy or ch’i to flow around which in turn creates a positive environment. Negative ch’i arises when the energy stagnates in one area and our surfing is impeded by a blockage such as an undesirable image or difficult to understand phrase.
• Consider the design features of your site. Can you add more open ‘white’ space around your content and images?
• Beware of clutter. Get rid of all unnecessary words, images and graphic design elements that do not add value to the visitor’s experience.
• Do not confuse or distract your visitor from the main message. What is it that you want them to do or learn? Is it crystal clear what it is you want them to do? You want your site to be attractive and effective.
• Navigational links to other pages should be clear, allowing positive energy to flow through the whole site.
• Mind mapping principles and adult learning theories suggest that a person cannot absorb more than 3 to 7 things at any one time without adequate rest and encouragement.  If your site is more complicated than this, look at ways of addressing closely related items so the distinction is almost seamless. If this is too difficult, you may need another site!

Balance Restful Yin & Active Yang Energies

Yin’s energy rises from the earth and becomes slower and cooler, controlling our desires and choices. It is represented by concepts of female, cold, stillness, moon, expand, black, odd numbers, negative and dark.

Yang’s energy comes down from the Heavens, controlling our morality. It is represented by concepts of male, hot, movement, sun, contract, white, even numbers, positive and light.

An example of perfect balance is The Financial Times newspaper. One of the world’s most influential newspapers, it chose pink, a feminine colour (Yin) to write about business data (Yang).

Consider the placement of design elements on your pages. Can the reader’s eyes travel smoothly around the site – usually in a bit of an “F” shape? Or are you forcing your visitor to read left to right and up and down for fear of not finding what they think might be there?

Consider adding design elements, such as images and fancy fonts, that support the energy you are trying to convey.

• Mix up your text with non-text elements.

If you want calm, use Yin elements. Therefore consider still images, darker tones and full rounded and subtle shapes. Think still landscape at sunset, the gentle pastel colours of a nursery and thick, rounded spirals of a fern.  Calm soothing colours such as blue or white are best for large areas of space.

If you want your visitor to be excited and invigorated you are best to use more Yang elements. Go for brighter images that have a sense of movement or rythym. Think strong, masculine and bold colours such as bright reds, blues and yellows; sharper fonts and borders with stronger contrasts for a more positive feel.

Psychology of Colour

Clean crisp colours which are bold will attract a user’s attention and should be used around the web page as this helps ch’i to flow.

Dark colours or white text on a black background is difficult to read, slows down reading and causes eye strain over time. It may look great at first but is definitely not very practical if you have lots of words to read. Limit high contrasts to headers and images. Dark colours attract negative energy which may cause visitors to hurry through your pages on their way out!

Aim for Simplicity ~ Think Creatively ~ Trust Your Intuition