(by 23 people)
For the color and webdesign challenged, the following links and utilities should prove to be valuable assets during your next design job. Image borrowed from Netcocktail.
Keep useability and friendliness in mind
There's more to it than just color
Choosing a pleasing color palette can be a daunting task. The colors you choose - be it for a simple birthday invitation or a full blown website layout - will be carefully scrutinized by its intended reader. Despite whatever you may believe, those bright colors you had in mind for your next project will be catastrophic if looked at for long periods of time.
Selecting a suitable color palette is a multi-step process. For your convenience, I've linked a number of online resources below which should assist you in creating a web friendly / readable color palette.
Selecting a suitable color palette is a multi-step process. For your convenience, I've linked a number of online resources below which should assist you in creating a web friendly / readable color palette.
Wait! What colors should I use?
Techniques for selecting colors
Review the following links to gain a new perspective on "recoloring" the web.
- mezzoblue >> Colour Schemes
- A designer's ?style' is made up of a number of different factors, though colour plays a large role. Everyone has their own method of coming up with a good colour scheme, which will inevitably affect the results.
- Web Page Design for Designers - Colour
- For most people, colour is something taken for granted. It is all around us. Yet, when we come to use colour, in paintings, in design, in our furnishings and clothes we often make mistakes because we don't understand what is going on.
Online color resources
online resources for creating visually pleasing color palettes / combinations
Contrary to what others may believe, not all colors are created equal. Pick your colors wisely when creating your next design palette.
- COLOURlovers
- My all time favorite color resource online. "New" color swatches are added daily. Colors are conveniantly organized based on tags, popularity, and comments. COLOURlovers is the Flickr of color(s).
- 500+ Colours
- This page lists over 500 colours by colour name, HEX value, RGB value and Microsoft Access code number. Discovering color codes is always the challenging part. Web resources that list the hex and RGB codes are worth a bookmark.
- ColorCombos
- For the web design and color challenged. ColorCombos will create pleasing color palettes for your next design project.
- ColorBlender
- Similar to ColorCombos, ColorBlender helps the designed challenged find a soothing color combinations. Bonus feature allows users to download the corresponding color tables for Photoshop (.ACT) or Illustrator (.EPS).
- Netcocktail
- Collecting popular / pleasing color combinations from around the net.
- Steel dolphin Creative - Color Scheme tool
- Another awesome color scheme generator for the color challenged. Submit on color that you are confident about and the Steel dolphin color generator will present you with 14 complimenting color options. Tip from Judy.
- Return of Design - Web Color Schemes
- Get inspired by these web-smart color schemes, taken from a variety of sources and updated regularly.
- Color Chart
- General resource Textile specific and Backpack related color codes. Thanks Douglas
Color picking utilities
Standalone color picking utilities
Opening Photoshop for your color needs wastes valuable time. Utilize one of these desktop utilities for your color picking needs.
- Iconico - ColorPic
- Free desktop color picking utility for Windows. Create and save multiple color palettes on your desktop. Having a lightweight color picking utility on your desktop is a lot more conveniant than having to start photoshop each time you want to find a color.
- ColorZilla
- Standalone color picking extension for the Firefox web browser which allows provides users with a color drop tool for sampling web page colors. ColorZilla provides the corresponding RGB and HEX color codes in your browser status bar.
- ColourMod Color Pickers
- ColourMod offers free color picking widgets for both OSXs Dashboard and Konfabulator for Windows / OSX.
