Having struggled recently on finding a color palette for a project, I decided to start keeping track of palettes I find that I like (you already know I collect design pieces I find attractive). I by no means claim these came from my own head.
What I present below is a collection I’ve started, particularly because sites Kuler and ColourLovers have become so overwhelming and I find that many of the palettes do not work once applied to real projects (too many are just pretty transitions from pink to blue or gradients from dark to light of a hue).
If the source image is available, I’ve provided it (took pics with my digital camera, but they’re a little dark), along with attribution to the artist or designer, if possible. I hope you find these as useful as I have!
Felix Doolittle
I originally found Felix Doolittle through the 2005 Communication Arts Design Annual (p. 10 if you have a copy). I really loved the palettes in the sample photos and wanted to check out the company. I searched and found their website. They offer so many beautiful, quaint illustrations for their vast array of stationary. These are a few of my favorite palettes (you may have to save the images and look at them one at a time to really appreciate the colors).
Crane Co
Salsgiver Coveney Associates designed a great branding program for Crane Co. This is another example from the 2005 CA Design Annual (pp. 68-69 for this one).
McGarryBowen
The Moderns design firm presented their work for the McGarryBowen Integrated Branding Program in the 2005 Design Annual (pp. 74-75). I love the retro feel to the colors. What do you think?
Snow Queen
From the 2005 CA Interactive Annual (p. 82), comes this vibrant yet moody illustration from designer Takora Kimiyoshi Futori. It was done for a book called Andersen: The Illustrated Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen.
Drawing on the Promises
I don’t remember how I found this design agency’s website, but I’m glad I did. I like their rustic style and the color palettes they choose. Look at how they use the primary colors and make them not look like a kid’s school project!
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Nice examples. I have also found that creating and using palettes inspired by real designs is helpful. You should take a peek at my ColorsPretty blog. I have been posting lots of color inspiration palettes based on things like vintage ad artwork, posters, and even atari video games. :)
Kara,
Hi! Wow, your entire blog is exactly like what I’ve done for this post! Thanks for sharing! I thought about putting this up on ColourLovers like you did, but I didn’t want to make it seem like I’d come up with them myself. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, though. I have really enjoyed collecting these palettes. It’s fun, isn’t it? What made you start a blog about it?
That Doolittle site is amazing.
I like your (and Kara’s) concepts of drawing colour inspirations from nice designs. I agree, even with so many handy colour sites and applications, it’s hard to find the right colour scheme for our projects.
I’ve got several handy Colour Widgets on my Mac’s Dashboard and usually, I go through various colour schemes based on the colours I want to use for my design, take the screenshots of those colour palettes and then pick and create my own colour scheme from all those palettes.
P.S. Kara, I liked the green colour of your blog, but when I first looked at it I thought the page didn’t finish loading yet - it looks a bit incomplete to me. I would prefer to see a more defined separation between the content, sidebar and the background. But that’s just me…;-)
Vivien (InspirationBit),
It’s good to see you here again! Holidays are so busy and I miss you here and I miss being on your blog. I’ll try to stop by today!
The Doolittle site is wonderful! I love stationary like that! Like I recently told Tara in another comment (here somewhere….), if I could be in any specialty in design, I would create handmade cards and stationary. And if I had a letterpress to do it on… oh I would be in heaven! I had my wedding invites done on a letterpress. They are the most beautiful thing ever!
Color is sometimes difficult for me and I’ve had others comment on it, too, which is why I’m featuring several things I’m discovering about them. For me, sometimes even the color scheming programs (or sites) just don’t work because I still have to choose a color! It’s nice to look at a scheme that’s already working in context and draw inspiration from that.
“I thought about putting this up on ColourLovers like you did, but I didn’t want to make it seem like I’d come up with them myself.”
Not exactly sure what you mean by that. The colors aren’t exactly the same as the compositions. I just ‘eyeball’ it mostly. My palettes are ‘inspired by’ the graphic art I’ve seen. My entries on COLOURlovers also show the ‘inspiration’ graphic for the palette. It’s one of my favorite features.
As for my blog, the palettes are something new I’m trying out. I’ve been trying to add a new color inspiration post a day. We’ll see how it goes. I post other design related things there as well.
Inspirationbit - Thanks for the comments. My blog is pretty simple (intentionally). Not sure about the ‘not loading’ comment. Maybe the graphics loaded slowly for you?
Kara,
Yes, I roughly estimate the colors, too. Most of the things I find are printed and scanning them or photographing them to make them digital just doesn’t turn the colors out the same (as you can see in the post).
I didn’t know that you could show the inspiration for the palettes in ColourLovers! Hmm… I’m going to have to more seriously consider uploading my favorites, even if it’s just for my own reference. It’d be nice to have a portable catalog of colors (like del.icio.us for colors). Thank you for stopping by and sharing this info! I love learning new things from my readers!! :D
Great idea to keep a set of nice colour schemes. Sometimes searching for inspiration on colour websites is so difficult because people just use shades, or I don’t like what they’ve done, there’s too many colours in one scheme, too many of the schemes are so similar… it’s a great idea to keep a collection for yourself. I’m sure there’s some personal software that would help with that. Then again, I’m sure you could just make a palette in PS.
Thanks for the post - colours are pretty :P
Kristarella,
That is exactly why I started keeping my own schemes! You’re right, I hadn’t thought of putting them into Photoshop palettes. But at the same time, I like to see where it came from because not all schemes work for all situations and it’s nice to have a working example. Kara (above) mentioned that with ColourLovers you can upload the image that inspired the palette. It would take a bit of time, but maybe that would be a great way to share these schemes and keep them accessible from anywhere for me.
Hehe, glad you like all the pretty colors!
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