Humans are highly responsive to colors; throughout the ages artists have used color to create emotion, inspire, or convey a message. Choosing effective colors can be the difference between the failure and success of a design.

Remember, you don’t need to have many different colors to create a great design. Two simple, high-contrast colors are effective at conveying almost any message and look great. These three combinations are by no means an inclusive list, many other great combinations exist; we just think that these three stand out from the rest and are unfortunately often overlooked by designers (especially amatures) in favor of more complicated, confusing color schemes.

Black and White

Black and White has been a staple color combination for quite some time. The high-contrast between black and white makes designs that utilize this color combo easy on the eyes. It can convey a sense of style and class, not to mention a singularly vintage look.

Keep in mind that black and white can be combined with almost any other color to highlight specific elements of the design, for example, our site or the New York Times.

Red and White

This tried and true color combination can inspire feelings of excitement, love, anger, or even luxury. Once again, the high-contrast between the two colors is key to this combination’s success. Also, this color is commonly associated with the holidays and is a great way to kindle a festive spirit.

Green and Blue

One of nature’s favorite color combos and usually used in conjunction with another color like white or black, green and blue work wonderfully together. They convey a sense of freshness and life, and look great in almost any application.

Have a favorite color combination? Tell us about it below-

Oh, did we mention that all of these sites are free?

21: SimplytheBest Free Fonts
Featuring a huge, categorized selection of fonts, SimplytheBest provides an invaluable resource to designers worldwide.
http://simplythebest.net/fonts/

20: PS Brushes – Photoshop Brushes
With over 500 brushes, PS Brushes makes it easy to find great, free brushes for all your creations.
http://www.psbrushes.net/

19: CSS Beauty
A very popular site showcasing some of the most exemplary css based websites.
http://www.cssbeauty.com/

18: Deviant Art
A huge collection of all types of artwork, a great sources of inspiration.
http://www.deviantart.com/

17: Web Creme
Clean and simple inspiration.
http://www.webcreme.com/

16: FAVEUP
Design inspiration gallery featuring logos, business cards, and websites.
http://faveup.com/

15: Pixel2Life
Huge database of design tutorials for many popular applications.
http://www.pixel2life.com/

14: Brush Fed
Many, many brushes for photoshop.
http://www.brushfed.com/

13: WebAppers
The best free, open source applications for web designers.
http://www.webappers.com/

12: WordPress
Sporting both single and multi-user versions, WordPress is one of the best and most user friendly blogging systems/CMS available.
http://wordpress.org/

11: Hotscripts
Perhaps the largest database of scripts on the net, Hotscripts is one of the best script resources available for webmasters.
http://www.hotscripts.com/

10: Search Engine Channel
A large database of SEO oriented articles. Definitely a must-visit for those interested in search engine optimization.
http://www.searchenginechannel.com/

9: ENTHEOS
Lots and lots of useful tutorials.
http://www.entheosweb.com/

8: Urban Fonts
A large selection of free fonts.
http://www.urbanfonts.com/

7: Computer Arts
A leading UK mag with a myriad of tutorial, tips, and resources.
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/

6: CSS Elite
Akin to CSS Beauty, CSS Elite features some great sources of inspiration.
http://www.csselite.com/

5: Freelance Switch
Insightful articles, job listings, and resources for freelance designers.
http://freelanceswitch.com/

4: Digital Arts
Another great design magazine.
http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/

3: 3D Total
Great website for CG artists.
http://www.3dtotal.com/

2: stock.xchng
Over 250,000 free stock images that can be used for commercial purposes.
http://www.sxc.hu/

1: Web Design Library
Large selection of articles, tutorials, and some free icons/buttons to top it off.
http://www.webdesign.org/

Of course, this is by no means a complete list. The internet is full of useful websites, this is meant to be a resource for designers who are looking for the best, free resources sites fast. We hope you find this list useful, remember to check back often for great resources from Digital Revolutions.

First things first, make use of the tools already available. No matter what content management system your site uses (or none at all) you can create a Google sitemap for your site. Back in the day, search engines would rely only on incoming links to judge the quality of your site. With the invention of the sitemap, you can let Google know exactly what your site contains and receive the fast indexing you need. Keep in mind that it is best to have your site optimized for search engines (eg. use a SEO content management system), as they respond especially well to search engine friendly links.

To generate a sitemap for free online, check out http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Secondly, make sure that the majority of your site’s content is text-based. Search engines can’t read images or videos and rely mostly on the text content of your site to judge its value. Sites with little or no text content generally will not rank as highly as comparable sites with much more text. Keep in mind that your site will rank higher if you are consistently adding fresh content, it will keep search engines coming back for more.

Remember to ensure that the content on your site is relevant to your site’s keywords and meta-tags. When search engines crawl you site, they compare the actual content to your keywords and meta-tags and penalize sites that don’t match up.

Finally, make use of sites such as digg and technorati to get free, high-quality incoming links. Even though search engines have changed over the years, having lots of incoming links from other high-ranking sites will boost your ranking.

Good luck with all of your online adventures!

-The Digital Revolutions Team

1. Visibility

These days it is impossible to run a highly successful business without an online presence. Even websites with
very little traffic increase corporation’s visibility exponentially.

2. Flexibility

Websites provide increased flexibility for almost any business, creating new ways for you and your
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Whatever your business specializes in, chances are you can sell it online. Having an online e-store not only
increases sales (and profit), but enables your corporation to compete in the
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Websites are exponentially less expensive than they were 5 years ago. These days, you can commission a
professional site for under $500, a small price considering the benefits websites offer. Using websites, advertising costs can be cut, all the while driving new clients directly to you. With the right design team backing you up, even new websites can achieve high rankings in a very short time.

5. Fewer Domains Available

Every day more and more domains are registered, increasing the risk that the domain you want is already taken.
Your site’s domain is exceedingly important, and having a short, memorable URL is paramount. Now is not the time to procrastinate, if you do not already have a website, contact us and start one today.