Thinking in Color - Part II

A little over a year ago, I wrote about some of the online tools I turn to when I'm trying to piece colors together. Color theory isn't one of those things I do instinctively (unlike my best friend, Kimmy, who is a natural!) so I've been working on improving my overall design sensibility and digging a little deeper into what makes good design. One aspect of that is how colors work (or don't work) together.

For starters, I invested in two subscription services: Lynda.com and Adobe Creative Cloud. For a very reasonable monthly fee, Lynda.com offers unlimited access to thousands and thousands of training videos on every single topic you can imagine, including web and graphic design, photography, and color theory. Learning is one of those things I don't think I'll ever get tired of and this subscription has turned out to be wonderful for those times when I want to dig a little deeper into something than I can get with a Google search.

The Adobe Creative Cloud membership offers me access to every single one of the programs that are part of the Creative Suite of products - but instead of paying $2,000 or more for the software, I pay a monthly subscription fee that ensures my software is up-to-date at all times. It's a win-win for me - I'm a heavy user of Photoshop and dabble with InDesign and Lightroom, and the subscription winds up saving me a ton of money on the programs I use the most.

But if you're looking for a color design tool that ups your game without a commitment or a financial investment, let me introduce you to Adobe Kuler. 

Select the color "rule" you want to try from the drop down menu, set your base (or primary) color, and then start moving the pistons in the center of the color wheel. Any change you make in one color results in changes to the others, making sure your colors stay related. You can also tweak individual colors using the sliders below the color blocks for fine tuning. When you come up with something you like, you can set up a free Adobe account and save the color palette to your themes so you can refer to them later.

But one of my favorite features is the ability to create a theme or palette from a photo. Upload a photo and Kuler automatically chooses a palette based on one of five pre-programmed color "moods." (This photo is one of my favorites from a Hawaii vacation we took in 2009.)

All of these themes evoke the overall feel of the photo, but each one has it's own unique vibe - except that the 2nd and 4th palettes are nearly identical. I am really drawn to that taupey grey on the right side of those two - very warm and rich, and not at all a color I would have picked out of this photo.

This photo (another favorite from our Hawaii trip) gets tweaked in a whole different direction.

I love that third palette - it really reads "spring" to me, and is composed of colors that aren't at all what I would have pulled out of this photo.

Honestly, this is one of those toys... uh, I mean tools.... I could spend hours with. It makes me think about colors in a new way, and usually pushes me towards color combinations that are completely outside my comfort zone. I've been trying out some of those color combinations in recent enameling experiments and I hope to have some things to share with you soon.

So what new digital tools are making their way into your studio? Are there new things you're finding you can't do without?

Until next time -

Thinking in Color (or Colour, for our UK friends)

When I first started making jewelry in 2008, I started with bead stringing - and honestly, I wasn't very good at it. Bead stringing has a lot to do with color and visual texture and I am a little color challenged. I know when things look good together and when they don't, but I can't tell you why and I have a hard time planning in advance for things that will go together. Most of my successful color-centric pieces have been happy accidents and not really intentional statements.

Now that I'm getting more heavily involved in glass fusing and copper enameling, though, I am trying to get a better handle on what I'm doing from a color perspective, especially since the enamel powders - like ceramic glazes - often look nothing at all like their final result after firing and glass (especially the dichroic I love so much) changes radically in the kiln. Here are some of the resources I've been using to get inspired and learn more about color theory in laymen's terms.

Brandigirl Blog (Brandi Hussey)

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that Brandi is someone I know - in fact, she helped me redesign my logo earlier this year. She recently wrote a really terrific three-part series on the basics of color theory and I highly, highly recommend it as a place to start.

Why Color Schemes Work, Part I 
Why Color Schemes Work, Part II 
Why Color Schemes Work, Part III

Her blog is also a place where you can regularly find some of the most beautiful and unusual color palettes, if you're looking for inspiration. (And her photography is stunning, too.)

Color Palette by Brandi Hussey, Brandigirl Blog

Color Palette by Brandi Hussey, Brandigirl Blog

Colour Lovers

This is a community site where a lot of different people create and post color palettes and patterns - and, like any other community, the results are a mixed bag. But it has some really fun features, including the option to find a palette you like and then use it to "color" available patterns in another part of the site.

A random palette from ColourLovers.com

Coloring patterns on ColourLovers.com

This can be a fun way to spend time when I'm feeling blocked - it has helped spark new ideas when I've been faced with a mat full of components and couldn't figure out what to do.

Design Seeds

Design Seeds may be one of my new favorite tools. Color specialist Jessica Colaluca posts daily palettes, with a twist. See a color that you really like? Choose it from the color list on the right and see more palettes that feature that color and similar colors. It's a great way to see a color you may be working with in multiple color combinations.

Color Palette by Design-Seeds.com

Palette Search Tool by Design-Seeds.com

So there you go, a few free and very useful resources to help you dig a little deeper into color. I hope you all have a very, very Merry Christmas, and that the coming year is filled with beautiful handmade things and much joy.

Until next time!