Slate, the news and opinion site, uses mainly white and maroon. This makes for high contrast and mostly keeps this from being confusing. The interesting choice of maroon is that the color red and orange are not popular. Joe Hallock says that they are associated with rage and fear and speed. However, by adding some black and changing the color to maroon, the site designers may have overcome the associations and are able to portray an attitude of calm. This is a good attitude to encourage visitors to read the articles and opinion pieces.
I ran across this Microsoft Office Online page about color choices for the web and I thought it would be interesting to see if the designers followed their own advice. It turns out they did. The color scheme of yellow and orange work very well as somewhat complementary colors. Also, as the site states, yellow gives the feeling of “happy, friendly, optimistic.” Hallock’s article also backs this up. He shows that yellow has the connotation of “fun.” I think it works well.
Triad 
Quad 
Monochromatic 
Double Complementary 