Color Inspiration!

What colors inspire you?

[Tim Lancaster]

Again, I'd like to ask where other designers find the inspiration for colors on your sites. Whether the site is corporate, personal, or entertaining, where do you look for the color schemes?

I usually find a colorful image and sample the colors I like from it and then try to incorporate those colors into the site design. Now, if the client has their own color scheme, I just transfer their materials into a web presence.

If you come across someone that says, "I'm not sure what colors I like, but I know I want it to POP!" what do you tell them?

Every experience I've had when a client says they want it to POP is that the page is realllly ugly. Some joker greens and purple! YUK! But isn't it our jobs to guide them into a scheme that is directed to the audience they're appealing to?

I guess I'm just tired of seeing the same color schemes and look for the odd colors that never get used so my sites will stand out. Any tips or advice?

[pcguru333]

I base the colors I use around the products/scheme of the page. If the colors 'match' the purpose of the website it helps retain the target audience.

Some techniques I use to decide on colors is I think in 'theme-mode'. An example would be a recent site for outdoor adventures in Arizona. I used 3 different shades of green and limited use of hunter orange. The inspiration for this came from photos of his outdoor adventures.

If you don't want to go the theme-based route then use color Wheels to see what colors compliment each other. When using a color wheel colors that are on opposite sides of the wheel are the most complimentary and have high visual appeal. As you stray to one side or another of the opposite color you have less appeal. An example is blue and yellow compliment each other.

[jennifer]

I try to find out what colors the client likes....and use variations of those.

Another good place to get ideas for color schemes is a fabric shop. You can place all sorts of colors(fabrics) together to see how they look.

[ppg]

before I started learning about computers and the web I used to be a mural painter, so I spent a fair bit of time learning color theory.
As a result I tend to fall back on the old color wheel quite a lot (what I call the 'standard' color wheel - red opposite green, blue opposite orange, purple opposite yellow), I find that if you start with two opposing colors like this and then 'knock them back' a bit you generally come up with pretty pleasing results.

My personal favourite that I think translates well to websites is blue and orange. heres [kxpi.com] a very basic site I did a while ago using these colors. Its a pretty crap site from every other point of view (I was a better mural painter than I am a website designer), but I like the colors. Should do something better with them one day.

I think complimentaries also work very well together, like say different shades of blue as used in a certain excellent webmaster resource site we all know :)

Tim, I think purple and green can be a very nice combination if you balance it right. Just about any combination can be nasty too if you get it wrong.

I must admit I've always chaffed at the bit with the web-safe palette, I find it very constricting. I don't know whats happened to me since I started learning how to build websites, I even spell color without the 'u' now!

I suppose my overiding concern when coming up with a color scheme for a new site is to make sure the colors dont get in the way of the content. I'm sometimes amazed by some of the color schemes I see - yellow text on a white background anybody?

[rcjordan]

>theme-mode

I look for colors that, for whatever reason, are prevalent on the literature rack or signage. For instance, medium & deep browns, ochre, and forest green are staples of anything having to do with outdoors or historic sites [nps.gov].

[DrCool]

Another idea for inspiration is to look at pro and college sports teams and the colors they use on their uniforms. Some of them look great together and some of them are terrible.

[Filipe]

Excellent method, DrCool!

[SlyGuy]

This may sound a little weird, but I use two methods for color "inspiration"..

1 - Take a walk through an Ikea, or browse their catalog. The Swedes have a fine eye for interesting color palettes and mixtures.

2 - Look at packaging for products. Anything from the box for a digital camera to a can of soup. Large companies spend millions of dollars on research into "soft-sell" colors and "inviting" colors. You can use their iinvestment for your own purposes.

I've always had a soft spot for soft earth tones. I love neutral colors, and I also use lots of greys and washed out colors in my sites..

.: Cheers :.
- SlyGuy -

[rogerd]

>>Another good place to get ideas for color schemes is a fabric shop<<

Aw, c'mon, Jennifer, how many macho SEO guys are going to be caught dead in a fabric shop?? ;) Hmmm, maybe if there are online fabric stores they could visit without anyone knowing... :)

[pcguru333]

I have gone to paint stores and 'borrowed' a number of paint chips. They have a lot of colors already coordinated for you as well.

BEATS the fabric Stores ;)

(edited by: pcguru333 at 9:15 pm (utc) on May 16, 2002)

[JayCee]

I agree with ppg, that some of the traditional design school color scheme methods, like using complements (say Violet and Yellow) and then also using the colors you get when you mix those complements in different proportions (like various browns) is good.

Of course the propotions are critical also. You don't want two complements in 50/50 proportions. I usually do something like:
Primary = 20% (main color)
Secondary = 10% (another color, maybe the text)
Tertiary = 65% (background)
Accent = 5%
Here, the accent would be one of the compliments, in a Value that made it stand out:

Value = reflectance or brightness = amount of white or black.
Hue = position on a pure color wheel = color
Saturation = color strength or purity = amount of gray

When I want pure color scheme inspiration, believe it or don't, I look at flowers. Many flowers have beautifully balanced color schemes, often with little bits of very dynamic pure huesr and larger areas of more subtle shades. Often complimentary colors too. And even though their "market" is insect vision, not human, I find many wonderful color schemes there.

Ever seen color photos of flowers that include UV (as bees see)? Amazing. Many flowers are like "landing pads" in scifi movies, with glowing arrrow shapes on the petals pointing into the nectar and pollen. Hmmmm... spring fever....

[mbauser2]

As a confirmed "web man", I'm almost embarassed to say this, but: I bought a book.

It's called "The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations" by Leslie Cabarga. It's basically just analyses of old advertisements (everything from Victorian trade cards to rave flyers), with CMYK values, and 5 variations of each scheme. Yet, it's a damn cool book.

I'm not, by nature, a colorful guy, but I've found this book is a great way to get the brain working. (Among other things, I discovered I'm fan of rave flyers.) It's sitting next to my PC right now.

Amazon says the book is in stock, and there's a sequel I didn't know about. (That's going on my wishlist for sure.)

[Purple Martin]

The company I work for has some graphic designers so colour inspiration is their area not mine, but I'm amazed how many times they come up with blue! About 3/4 of the stuff we produce is some shade of blue. It seems to be a colour that clients find "reassuring". If we move away from blue it'll be because the client has a corporate colour scheme.

A couple of weeks ago I did a site for a friend, which gave me a rare chance to pick the colours. She wanted "pow" and she's in her early twenties, so I gave her orange on black and she loves it. I got the colours from a bumble-bee soft toy!

[tedster]

Yep, blue, blue, blue. It's stable, secure, and dependable - no matter what the monitor or OS. And I am tired of it, but what ya gonna do?

I was asked last week to consult on a new website design. It was stunning on a CRT monitor: gold/orange type an accents over a near-black background. Then I looked on my laptop - the orange/gold was gone. An LCD screen (24 colors - new Sony) rendered the text in near white.

Blue never lets you down like that!

[SmallTime]

Anything but blue is my theory. Freehand has a bunch of color palettes it can be helpful to look at. Lots of good suggestions in this thread, thanks.

[JayC]

>> "The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations" by Leslie Cabarga.

Another worthwhile and on-topic book: The Pantone Guide to Communicating With Color." It's really focused more on print than on the web -- but it's a great discussion of the moods and symbolism of color, and the development of color trends.

[lauren1396]

A great site that I stumbled on by accident is the color schemer (http://www.colorschemer.com/online/)

All you have to do is pick a color and it gives you 16 colors that go with it and the hex codes...I don't always use the exact colors it comes up with but it gives me some ideas!

[monolift]

Nice tip, I just went to the color schemer site.

Have you purchased the program?

[rogerd]

>>I have gone to paint stores<<

Now that's more like it, pcguru... especially if the paint department is between power tools & chain saws. :)

While we are on this topic, are there any sites that actually demonstrate the color combos in use? I like the color boxes at colorschemer.com, but I'm still challenged to visualize type & background combos, etc.

[brotherhood of LAN]

>colour in action

yeah for sure, i have "white and white". Minimalism :)