Freedom Kilts Web Site down!

[wsk]

If you're looking for a specific color, have you considered the admittedly "old school" technique of using a background tile (made of a photographic image)? Perhaps something like this?

The problem with backgrounds like that is that you have to find just the right color of foreground (text usually). You have to make it easy for your customers to read what you have written or they'll go away. After all, the preponderance of what people read is printed black on white. While this is, no doubt, partially driven by economics, it is what we're used to seeing and so is what we are most comfortable with. I would go no darker than the background to this message.

For my own web site I use a white background and black text so that it's easy for my customers to read. For visual interest I use large red drop caps to begin the text of major sections. I also add boxes with a pale gray background where I put thumb nails and links so that the contrast is maintained and the solid white background is broken up.