Color Palettes: Finding the Perfect Combination
Finding the right color palette for a website design can be challenging. Often the client’s logo will dictate the dominant colors, or you might be basing the design on a photo from which you can sample colors. When I’m struggling with finding the combination that makes it all come together, I turn to some great online color resources - these are my favorites:
Adobe’s Kuler - http://kuler.adobe.com/ Explore palettes, search by tags, save your favorite themes, and create your own to share with other designers. View this tutorial video from AdobeTV to learn more about Kuler. I especially like having the ability to create a theme from a photo.
ColorJack - http://www.colorjack.com/ Hover over a color to see a palette suggestion. Don’t miss the articles section for some interesting background about color symbolism and psychology.
Daily Color Scheme - http://beta.dailycolorscheme.com/ Know of other good color resources? Please share them in a comment. Happy coloring!
I’ve been a designer for 20 years. I started in the days of waxers and transfer letters, transitioned to the computer in the late eighties, and tackled web design in the early nineties. I’ve tried to keep up with all of the software and technologies of the trade, from HTML to CSS and ASP, Pagemaker to InDesign. I’ve worked in both worlds–freelance and corporate, finding that they both have their upsides and drawbacks. It’s a challenge to stay current, but it’s my passion and the perfect profession for someone who never wants to be bored! I hope that I have something valuable to offer other designers.
I love playing with the color wheel.
An important thing is to look at your work/websites from multiple computers. When I first started my site, I loved my color choices, an antique sort of look, but when I saw it on other computers, it was a bright yellow, so I decided to change it until I found the color I wanted that showed up correctly on all computers. Places you can look at other computers’ colors are: the library, KMart, and friends.
Thanks for the cool post.