These Colors Taste Delicious

Since the dawn of man…

epic music

Just kidding. (I’ve always wanted to get historical about something and have “dawn of man” using the preview guys voice in some sort of post). But seriously, since the creation of man endless upon endless color palettes have graced the surface of this earth. From the Great Pyramid’s hieroglyphs to paintings from the Renaissance to the post-modern art movement to the Dunkin Donuts branding campaign, colors have been an important part of human expression and the creative process. Finding the right color palette or scheme for your next project can be quite tedious. What if designers just put random colors together without the use of proper color wheel combinations? It would be creative chaos, anarchy, full-blown spectrum’geddon even (see what I did there with the word spectrum? No? Never mind).

I’m just saying, Superman in Fuchsia and Chartreuse tights would not have been the greatest of ideas. The iconic Red and Blue costume worn by the Man of Steel is reminiscent of the Red, White and Blue of the American flag. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that the creators of Superman borrowed the colors from Old Glory to create a character that would, subconsciously, bring hope and lift spirits during the final years of the Great Depression.  The wrong color choice for Supes could have been detrimental.

Your color choice can make or break both strong and weak pieces of work.

Thankfully, gone are the days of endless swatch searching and tweaking to find the perfect color. Both online and through design applications there are various ways of finding the best color spectrum for your next creative project.

Enter ColourLovers.com.

I found this site about 4 years ago while I was searching for a specific color that I just couldn’t get right. Tweaking the CMYK slider and swatches in Adobe Illustrator proved to be very frustrating. I just wanted to type what I was looking for and see the results. ColourLovers.com does just that. You’re able to search through over 3,000,000 colors in HEX code, RGB, CMYK. Also what I find even more useful is the ability to search, create and follow color palettes.

The process is quite simple and the site offers plenty of goodies to go along with color selection, including swatch downloading, pattern making, rating, trends and much, much more. Registering is free and you can enjoy the expanding community of over 430,000 members. It’s a great way to get inspiration for your next project in addition to meeting other creatives that love color.  The color palettes featured and ranked highest on the website are absolutely phenomenal. I appreciate that some very talented individuals gracefully give their time to present their color ideas to the masses.

Your color choice can make or break both strong and weak pieces of work. Alternatively, if you have Adobe Illustrator and want to search from the comfort of your own program without going to your web browser, you can use Adobe Kuler, found right in your Extensions. It is a similar idea, but is limited in comparison.

So kids, by all means, color outside the lines, challenge your creativity but choose your color ammunition wisely.

Tasty Palettes for your Palate:

Below are a few of my favorite palettes featured in ColourLovers.com including a few of my own.

Color by COLOURlovers	Color by COLOURlovers
Color by COLOURlovers	Color by COLOURlovers
Color by COLOURlovers	Color by COLOURlovers
Color by COLOURlovers	Color by COLOURlovers

Eye Candy:

Some excellent examples of fantastic use of color by young guns and veteran designers for your inspiration.