Color Swatch

Finding that perfect color combination can sometimes be a tough nut to crack. I find that for me, it's all about inspiration, so here are 5 great resources for "color-block." And of course they're presented in a list... because everyone loves lists.

5 - COLORJACK
http://www.colorjack.com
Extremely useful online utility that allows you to create color palettes by experimenting and tweaking a whole slew of options. When you're done, you have the option of exporting your swatches to Illustrator or Photoshop.

4 - COLORZILLA
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/271
Sometimes inspiration comes from other sites or random images floating around on the WWW. So instead of hitting the ole' "print screen," I use ColorZilla. It's one among a plethora of useful plugins for FireFox. Basically once installed, you're able to sample any color displayed within your browser in all its hexadecimal glory.

3 - BEHR COLORSMART
http://www.behr.com/behrx/workbook/index.jsp
Behr has a fun application for choosing paint colors for your home, and I find that it's a great resource for finding interesting palettes for design work. One advantage that I see in the site is that you get to see what's hot and trendy in interior design.

2 - KULER
http://kuler.adobe.com/
Kuler, from Adobe Labs, is by far the sexiest of the five resources listed here. It has a slick interface and intuitive usability. The "create" feature is clean and fast, and the social, community aspect is great.

1 - COLOURLOVERS
http://www.colourlovers.com
...the queen mother of color sites. Although Kuler has a better "mixer" tool, COLOURlovers has a superior online community full of people who are passionate about color. The blog posts are interesting, and they truly seem to have their fingers on the pulse of color trends. And as an added bonus - the site is beautifully designed.

One Response to “5 Great Color Resources For Designers”

  1. Tim McLeod Says:

    There is also a Kuler AIR app for the desktop. It’s not nearly as cool as the online version, but…

    http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/kuler/

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