Colour and emotion are closely related, so it makes sense to pay particular attention to the colour we choose. This list of 48 tools and resources will help, and I’ve separated the links into the following categories: colour palettes and combinations (#1-6), colour theory (#7-16), colour tools (#17-41), colour patterns (#42-44), and colour code (#45+).

Colour palettes and combinations

1/ COLOURlovers

COLOURlovers gives people who use color – whether for ad campaigns, logo design, or in architectural specification – a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, comment on news and read color-related articles / interviews.

2/ Nature’s Color Palette

Nature provides some of the most striking and beautiful color palettes imaginable! You don’t have to look far to find great inspiration.

3/ Color combinations – cure for designers block

Choosing the right color combination is vital for any design – logos included. In these pages you will find more than 200 color combinations to help you in selecting colors for your website or identity project.

4/ Color combinations, schemes and palettes

The heart of the site is the Combo Tester, which allows designers to see how different color combinations work together on the screen.

5/ colr.org

colr.org has been around since March 2005. It has two purposes: 1) It’s a tool to let designers fiddle around with colors. 2) It’s a jungle gym for software ideas.

6/ Web 2.0 colour palette

Organised into 3 distinct colour groups – neutrals, muted tones and bold colours, you may recognise a few of the shades from some of your favourite Web 2.0 sites.

Colour theory

7/ The Color Wheel and Color Theory

The color wheel is one of the first places I turn for color inspiration and guidance when choosing a color scheme. Color charts and pre-made palettes are nice, but the color wheel is simple and easy to understand and use.

8/ DOs and DON’Ts – Colour

Did you know that colour and visual elements activate the right brain (emotions), while the printed words activate the left brain (logic)?

9/ Color: Meaning, Symbolism and Psychology

Our reaction to color is almost instantaneous and has a profound impact on the choices we make everyday. This lens is a quick look at general responses to colors based on research, historical significance of color and word association studies.

10/ Colour Matters

Color plays a vitally important role in the world in which we live. Color can sway thinking, change actions, and cause reactions. It can irritate or soothe your eyes, raise your blood pressure or suppress your appetite.

11/ Color Theory Overview

Why study color theory? If you are involved in the creation or design of visual documents, an understanding of color will help when incorporating it into your own designs.

12/ Colour Harmony: Secrets of Web Color Revealed

One of the most challenging aspects of visual design is developing effective color harmonies that strike a balance between monotony and overstimulation.

13/ 16 Lessons in Color Theory

The history of color, colors with pastels, the meaning of color, color perspective, and much more…

14/ Color Theory: A brief tutorial

For a long time, there has been a problem that fledgling designers have run into. This problem seems insignificant to most, but it is quite possibly the most important factor in a design or piece of artwork. I’m talking about the issue of COLOR.

15/ Color Theory Articles

Color is the byproduct of the spectrum of light, as it is reflected or absorbed, as received by the human eye and processed by the human brain. It’s also a great design element!

16/ Design Psychology

Insights into the purpose and effect of physical elements, design, and layout of web pages … and why clients should let designers handle design.

Colour tools

17/ Adobe Kuler

Explore, create and share color themes. Use online, or download themes for Adobe Creative Suite 2 and 3.

18/ Accessibility Colour Wheel

I’ve borrowed the formulas to compute the contrast and brightness difference between two colors from the W3C.

19/ Colorblind web page filter

If you only use one filter, use the grayscale filter which will not only point out potential problem areas.

20/ Triplecode – Munsell Palette

Picking colors is not an easy task. It is definitely an art. But available software tools don’t make the task any easier. This is, in part, because most color models (such as RGB, HSV, and web color palettes) are based on mathematical formulas which have little to do with how the human eye sees colors.

21/ The Flash Color Scheme Generator

ColorToy 2.0 is a Flash based color scheme generator and picker. It generates complementary color schemes based on your inputted color values or randomly, which is much more fun.

22/ Color Palette Generator

Start with one of the following actions: 1. Browse for an image (of type png gif jpg jpeg) and upload it. 2. Select an image from the drop down menu.

23/ 4096 Colour Wheel

Hover over the wheel to view colors. Click to choose a web-smart color. Reload to clear.

24/ Color Blender

ColorBlender – your free online tool for color matching and palette design.

25/ colordb – the colour database

Complementary, opposite, neutral, shade, analogous, triadic, tetradic…

26/ ColorLab

The 216-Color Webmaster’s Palette.

27/ Colour Scheme 1, Colour Scheme 2

Experienced designers choose colors intuitively. However, finding a good combination of colors may be sometimes long and gruelling work. These tools will find a set of colors you can start with, and may facilitate the search for the optimal color palette.

28/ Colour Schemer Online v.2

You can get a related fix here at the ColorSchemer Blog.

29/ Color Shades: Colors and Lighter Hexadecimal Codes and Swatches

This chart shows a list of colors and, for each color, three other colors based on the original color but with higher light values. You can use this chart to set up color schemes.

30/ Colour Contrast Analyser

This page is provided to allow you to check the contrast of two colours using the W3C’s colour contrast algorithm by specifying the colours directly.

31/ ColourMod DHTML Colour Picker

ColourMod comes in many different juicy versions. Each version is tailored to fit your specific needs and desires. From colour conversions on your desktop, to colour picking on the web, there is something for you.

32/ Easy RGB

Provides information and services related to color technology. During the years it has become a popular source of technical and commercial information about colors, color science and color programming techniques.

33/ Eye Dropper Colour Mixer

This perl tool uses ImageMagick to fetch a chosen pixel’s hex color value. You can use any image you like. This is very handy if you’re trying to match an image background perfectly.

34/ Find matching colors for your web page

Find matching colors for your web page.

35/ Infohound Color Schemer

This color schemer is a simple tool to help you experiment with various color schemes for your next web or print project.

36/ Kolur.com Color Inspiration

Kolur is a simple (and hopefully) enjoyable way to browse color palettes. Designs displayed in our gallery go beyond the generic 3 colored dots, and attempt to portray the possibilities in palettes.

37/ Online Image Editors Compared

In this new era of web-based applications I thought it would be worthwhile to see if there were any online image editing tools that would meet requirements and maybe more.

38/ I Like Your Colors – Red Alt

There is a form at the bottom of this page that lets you choose any URL you want to extract colors from.

39/ The Sessions.edu Colour Calculator

Identify colour harmonies faster than with any colour wheel or chart. Use it to select a colour scheme for a logo design or identity project.

40/ Unsafe Colormatch

Specify a base color in decimal (R,G,B) or #hex – or in CSS color specification format. Choose Lightness steps (20%, 10% or 5%). Press SHOW.

41/ Web Color Visualizer

Set the background color, then hover over swatches to test how text color works.

Colour patterns

42/ Squidfingers / Patterns

Feel free to use any of these patterns on your own site.

43/ Pattern-Bomb

Pattern-bomb is a site for everything you ever needed regarding Photoshop patterns.

44/ The Inspiration Gallery

Over 1,000 patterns for your inspiration.

Colour codes

45/ Color Codes Matching Chart HTML (Convert CMYK, RGB Hex)

Note that the conversions in this color codes chart are best described as “nominal”. They will produce an invertible conversion between the RGB code and a subset of CMYK; that is, one can take an RGB color code and convert to certain CMYK colors, and from these CMYK colors obtain the matching, original RGB codes.

More colour resource lists

If you haven’t already found the colour tool or article you were looking for, here are additional lists of colour resources for your convenience.

46/ 55+ Color Tools and Resources for Graphic Designers

Every designer will find these free online color tools useful. Whether you are a Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Fashion Designer, Interior Designer, Logo Designer, or any other.

47/ 101 Color Resources for Web Designers

101 color resources for Web designers. The categories are listed alphabetically as are all the links contained within each category.

48/ Top 6 Most Useful Color Tools for Designers

There are a lot of lists of color tools out there, but how many turn out to be of any use? The best tools are user friendly, easily customizable and provide you with every code or file format that you need.

Do you know of any other colour tools or resources?

If you’ve used any of the tools above, or if you know of others, feel free to add a comment.

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“It looks different on my screen.”

A client might ask for a specific Pantone colour from their Pantone swatch book. The designer sets the file exactly as is required, yet when the client sees an example on their computer monitor they are disappointed that the colour isn’t the same. Why is that?

Brightness, contrast, colour settings… all monitors have them. Unless two monitors are calibrating to the exact same settings then the colours will always appear different. The best way to colour-match is using printed proofs, and even then, your choice of paper can critically affect the colour of your printed product.

“Can you use the image from the website for our brochure?”

Sourcing images can be very time-consuming. Many clients will believe that an image they find online is perfect for their print job. However, in order to look clear, web images must have a resolution of 72 dots per inch (dpi). Print work, on the other hand, requires images to have a resolution of at least 300 dpi.

Anyone responsible for marketing material / printed promotions should be familiar with a design guide for print.

“Why does it cost that much? My neighbour only charged £200 for a logo.”

The client doesn’t often see the process involved when a graphic designer takes on a logo project. In fact, on most occasions the client will only see a few computer-generated designs.

A designer will only use a computer at the end of the logo design process. Beforehand comes clarifying the design brief, research, brainstorming and logo sketching (yes, lots of sketching).

What issues do you find cropping up again and again when dealing with graphic designers / clients?

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Have you ever had a client ask you why their marketing material hasn’t printed the colour they requested?

Their first reaction is normally to point the finger in the direction of the designer, and here I explain how printing can go wrong.

In one instance they’re absolutely correct to place blame upon the designer, because chance are they haven’t been educated how different paper stocks produce different tones from exactly the same colour of ink. Graphic designers, amongst many other professions, take on the role of teacher to give their client an understanding of critical factors such as this one.

Colour control is important even when colour ink isn’t used. A black ink can appear to contain colour when printed on a colour substrate.

Remember, the grade, grain and colour of paper used affects the colour of the ink.

Also, the light source under which you’re looking at the printed product can dramatically affect the colour tone. It reminds me of how supermarkets distort the colour of their meat displays with different lighting, giving it a fresher appearance.

If you select a colour from a colour swatch book and ask 100 printers to print it, you could well get 100 different tones. If you don’t have a swatch book and are thinking of picking one up, here are some useful pointers for before you buy PANTONE colour guides.

Always, always ask your printer for a proof before signing-off on your print job. Make it a hard copy (or digital proof) too, which should usually be included in the price of the project. A PDF proof will not show you the results of how your colour prints.

Have you always been happy with the colour of your print material?

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#1: What colour shall we make our new range of mobile phones?
#2: Hmmmm. Shall we use Pantone?
#1: Yes! What will we call the colour range?
#2: Hmmmm. Shall we use Pantone?
#1: Super! How will we market the new style?
#2: Hmmmm. Shall we use Pantone?

I found these over at Peter’s J-List side blog, which is a site about a westerner’s take on Japan. You can also view the Softbank product page for this range of phones here.

If you’re not familiar with PANTONE, it’s the international standard for colour communications, with each and every colour tone given a unique Pantone reference, helping enormously when dealing with clients and printers.

When it comes to mobile phones I’m happy with one that allows me to talk to someone else. Gimmicks never ‘float my boat’ so to speak. I enjoyed the presentation of these phones however, and kudos to the merchandising department for the eye-catching display.

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I’ve learned that by streamlining the prepress process I am able to pass significant savings onto my clients. My prepress guidelines let me bypass common mistakes made when digital artwork is prepared for print.

Here I show how you can save money when printing.

With quality in mind, all files I send for print are in industry standard:

.ai, .indd, .qxp, .pdf, .eps

Software I use on an almost daily basis include Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat, QuarkXPress, and all filetypes created should be accepted by any commercial print company.

What to know before you print

Resolution

A commercial printer requires all submitted files to be 300dpi (dots per inch). If you design a job at 72dpi or lower they cannot use the file for print purposes. Their prepress department will resize it to 300dpi therefore “stretching” the image. See the example above where one image was created at 300dpi, and the other was created at 72dpi, then stretched out to 300dpi.

Bleed, trim and safety

Bleed

About 3mm on all sides will be trimmed off. Everything that extends past the original canvas size is considered a bleed. Make sure you do not have any important content in this area. Adjust your canvas size to compensate for this; allow another 3mm. (See Size) Although printer cutting staffs are extremely precise, they usually cannot guarantee any print job cuts with out the added bleed. There are no exceptions. Also, please keep your text at least 6mm away from the edge of the piece unless it is an eighth page or smaller. This way your text is in a “safe” area.

Trim

The trim area is a space of 3mm after the bleed. Its purpose is to separate any text or important content from the edge.

Safety

The safety area is the space where its “safe” to put your layout, design and content.

Size

Your print files should be designed in the size that is being ordered. Printers assume that you desire what you have ordered, and files will be re-sized in accordance to the job. A printer will not stretch and enlarge a file unless at your request. For example a 4.25″x5.5″ quarter page ordered as a 4″x6″ postcard will print as a 4″x6″.

Colour

There are two types of colour spaces that are used for graphic and print design:

RGB (Red, Green, Blue)
These are the colours your monitor uses to display everything.

CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black)
These are the colours used for printing.

Colour shifts are usually not visible in colour photographs. However, rich and solid colours (like a background) can be affected by a colour conversion. Most of the time, colour shifts are minor and may not be noticeable.

Using the colour BLACK

Rich Black

Large, solid black areas and text over 36 points should use Rich Black to prevent the colour looking gray. Rich Black consists of 30% Cyan, 30% Magenta, 30% Yellow, 100% Black. For regular body text, do not use Rich Black.

4 Colour Build Black

If you have small, thin text on your piece, it is STRONGLY recommended that you do not use 4-colour build black on your piece. Although, using a 4-colour black is recommended on larger areas, using 4-colour text on small areas will make your text blurry and at times, unreadable.

Process printing uses 4 plates that overlay to make your full colour spectrum on your paper. Although precise, the registration of the 4 plates will shift during the print process. If you use all 4 colours to create your black, they will not line-up precisely, creating a ghosting effect.

This is especially evident on small lines, or small text, 12pt and smaller. In order to fix this, all small text should be created as 100% black, 0% Cyan, Magenta, Yellow. This way, as plates shift, it will not affect the black colour.

Fonts

Convert fonts to paths when possible. By converting fonts to paths in programs like Illustrator and FreeHand, you will avoid having to send the fonts with your files. When converting to paths, the text becomes a vector shape and will look no different than its original state.

In Photoshop, text can be rasterized and therefore does not need the fonts. Keep in mind that after rasterizing, no changes can be made to the text.

If your fonts are not converted to paths or rasterized, your design may not be viewed the way it was meant to be seen.

File names

In order to make the pre-flight process more efficient, please use unique file names for files you are submitting. The file name should reflect the job name that was given when ordering. Example: jsmith_4×6_front.pdf

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