If you’re over 40, the title of today’s post might bring back memories of a very popular TV show. That’s not what this post is about, but I will come back to it, for those who are interested in nostalgia and/or trivia.
Today I’m actually going to talk about choosing colours for your logo, your blog, your website, or just about anything. Unless you’ve had training in art or graphic design, it can be pretty tricky to come up with colours that go well together and portray the type of image you’re looking for. I don’t have that type of training myself, but I’ve found a few helpful websites that I’d like to share with you.
According to Wikipedia, this palette was devised when most computers were only capable of displaying 256 colours. By sticking to the 216 designated “web safe” colours, you were supposedly assured that the shades would appear exactly the same, regardless of the computer they were viewed upon. When I learned about this, I attempted to stick to these shades, only to discover that #FFFFCC looks nice and beige on my system, but a sickly shade of yellow on my husband’s. Similarly, #CCCCFF is a lovely pale blue on my computer, but distinctly mauve on Scott’s. After coming to that realization, I no longer worry about sticking to supposedly web safe colours, but the page is still a quick and easy way to find the hexadecimal and or RGB code for a particular colour.
RGB to Hexadecimal Color Conversion
Sometimes you’re working from a Word document you or your client has created, and you want to use the same colour online. Since Word only uses RGB or HSL colour codes, this website is very useful for calculating the equivalent hexadecimal code. It even tells you how to convert it to a web safe colour, should you wish to do so.
Maybe you’ve got a colour that you like and you want to find some others that will go well with it. That’s where this site comes in handy. You simply enter the RGB or HSL code for your starting colour, then click on Match blend from active colour. You can then tweak or edit the shades if they’re not quite to your liking, and when you’re done, you can save your blend or send it by email if you want feedback from someone else. You can even click on Load a random blend if you’re really stuck for ideas!
If the above links didn’t excite you, please don’t go away just yet, because this one is really special. And if the above links DID excite you, get ready to be blown away!
In addition to a vast selection of colours and palettes, COLOURLovers lets you choose or even create patterns based on your favourite shades. It is actually a community where you can vote on palettes and patterns and even share your own. Their latest development is Themeleon, which lets you create a background for your Twitter profile. Of course, when I found out about it, I just had to try it out. Check out my new Twitter background!
I’m warning you: Don’t go to this site unless you have a specific goal in mind and the self-discipline to stick to it, or lots of time to kill, because it truly is addictive!
Well, that’s enough fun with colours for today!
If you were wondering, Disney’s Sunday night show was called “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” from 1961 to 1969. I won’t ask you to admit that you knew that.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Janet Barclay, Janet Barclay. Janet Barclay said: Some great websites for choosing colours and colour combos http://www.janetbarclay.com/2009/11/20/the-wonderful-world-of-colour/ [...]
I love playing with color online, too! My favorite site is http://www.colorcombos.com. You can see color combos based on color tags – like red, blue or purple. Click on the Combo Tester tab and pick your favorite colors, then use the drop down to Get Complimentary Colors – Fun!
The best part is the Grab Website Colors section on the home page where you can pull the colors from your own or someone else’s website. Give it a try!
Thanks for sharing this, Melodee! I had this site in my bookmarks but excluded it from my post, thinking it didn’t do anything that one of the other sites didn’t also do, but I didn’t know about the Grab Website Colors section. I can think of a number of occasions where that could be very useful.
Melodee, I’ve already used Grab Website Colors twice since you mentioned it. It’s great when you need to match something on a client’s website!
I’m glad it’s been helpful to you, Janet!