Colorize yo....errr.... my world!

He has: 296 posts

Joined: May 2002

One thing I've always had trouble with is picking colors. Usually I just pick one and then change it slightly for different colors. Most of the time, however, that's not the best way to do it. Is there a special technique? Does it come from practice? Do you use a program? Most of my time as a web developer has been spent in the coding side and I'm slowly wandering into the design aspect of it all and I'm running into deadends like these.

Also, o you have any advice for something like this? I tried to make a non-graphic site and excluding the plus things (removing those sometime) I did. However, I don't think it flows in the best ways possible. Do you have any ideas? As for the fact that there isn't a logo, I haven't made one because I don't have anything to base a logo on yet.

Any and all help is appreciated,
necrotic

[James Logsdon]

Abhishek Reddy's picture

He has: 3,348 posts

Joined: Jul 2001

There are numerous, mysterious ways in which designers work. I do not know them. But I know a program that knows them. Wink

There are many models for colour relationships that work... they're fundamentally the same: some groups of colours work and others don't -- probably the most basic relationship chart is the colour-wheel (darned if I can remember the colours on it). Colours that are opposite each other on the wheel are "complementary" and work together... like yellow and purple, red and green (??).

I'm very fuzzy on colours, so I stick to tools like the colorschemer linked above. In fact, I'm partially red-green blind, so my ineptitude is not something I can do much about. Sticking out tongue

That reminds me, there was a good site about colours and design called "shades of grey" or similar. Does anyone here know it? I seem to have lost the URL, and can't find the site...

Renegade's picture

He has: 3,022 posts

Joined: Oct 2002

lol Julia, just a few?

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

I've never seen an online colour tool that works as well as I'd like it to. I can always find better combinations on my own, atlhough those tools are good for ideas.

I think that colour is something you really just need to ave an eye for. If you don't, borrow a colour scheme from another design (could be anything - a website, a sports team, a magazine ad, a nature photo, a photo of a designed interior etc.)

He has: 296 posts

Joined: May 2002

Thanks for the links Julia! I'll look at them all now, since I actually really don't have anything to do for once in my life!

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