Color inspiration can come from anywhere. In December’s Metropolitan Home (RIP. Sob) there was a feature about an apartment with an amazing color palette. My favorite image is above: gorgeous, unexpected color.

I ran the image through CSS Drive’s Image to Colors Palette Generator and was rewarded with this mouthwatering color palette:

Yum.

For more color palettes, please see:
Color Palette Goodness

Long time readers (hi, Mom!) may remember my round up of book covers for Eat, Pray, Love. During a recent trip to the bookstore my design snobbery raised its ugly head again. This time, after looking at shelf after shelf of mysteries, I literally chose a book by its cover.

Interesting lettering, quirky artwork, classic looking limited palette, background texture adding depth to the design. Not only did I think this was a winner, but I saw that there was a whole series of books which carry through this design:

These books were published by Bantam Paperback, and kudos to them on the excellent work.

Would I have bought this book, though, if it looked like this? (more…)

One of my work-related New Year’s resolutions is to work on my color selections. I tend to go back to the tried and true of primary colors and clear hues and this year I’m forcing myself to expand my repertoire. A fantastic tool for this is CSS Drive’s Image to Colors Palette Generator. There you can upload an image to generate a color palette based on the image’s primary colors. This, of course, works well when you already have an image that you want to use and you want to create a color palette to complement it.

Lately, though, I’ve started using it at the beginning of a project to help me decide on a palette. I’ve been building a lightbox at iStockPhoto.com with color inspiration (go ahead and use it, too,  if you’re in need of some color therapy). For a recent project I decided that earthy browns and greens would be appropriate. I visited my lightbox, chose a couple of images which seemed to contain the colors I was looking for, and let CSS Drive do the work. Here’s the palette I chose:

Of course, I could just open the image in Photoshop and use the eyedropper tool to pick colors myself, but I find that I unconsciously choose the clearest, brightest colors in the image. Using the generator, I am presented with a much wider spectrum to choose from.

This is the first of a series of color palette posts. Please feel free to use the palettes in these posts for your own projects. And let me know if you have a fail-proof method of choosing the colors for your projects.

I’ve been very lucky to work with some amazingly talented people over the years. One of my favorite surprises is to have my path cross with someone’s that I used to know and find them going well.

Through Facebook, I recently got back in touch with Teafly, and I was thrilled to see the beautiful work she’s selling at Etsy. If you’re looking for some colorful, whimsical art, check her out: http://teafly.etsy.com

I’m late to the party on this, but I just found 20/20: 20 designers in 20 minutes from AIGA. From the site:

About this video

Debbie Millman introduces 20 designers who were invited to show in their own unique way—and in just 60 seconds—how design and business intersect in their practice.

The designers, in order of appearance: Rodrigo Corral, Moira Cullen, Kristina DiMatteo, Julia Hoffman, Kenna Kay, Michael Ian Kaye, Chip Kidd, Josh Liberson and Ethan Trask, Vernon Lockhart, Christine Mau, Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit, Bennett Peji, Brian Rea (represented by a papier-mâché doppelganger), Petter Ringbom, Craig Swanson, Lucille Tenazas, Khoi Vinh, Petrula Vrontikis.

The different approaches the designers take, from serious to sincere, amusing to avant garde, are so interesting. Watch now!