View Full Version : HOWTO: Get a good color scheme
Brandon Martus
29-05-2003, 20:59
One way is to be knowledgeable in the color wheel & all that artsy stuff. I for one am not, so I cheat.
http://color.pubarso.com/
And now you can too. :) Just choose a primary color, and it gives you a 6-color palette to use.
Yes, I borrowed this from a site. I didn't want it to not be there one day, so I took it with me.
This one works with Firefox: http://www.hlrnet.com/colormatch/index.php
yangotang
29-05-2003, 21:02
Sweet. I shall use. Thx j00!
sanddrag
29-05-2003, 21:02
That is way cool. :cool: Thanks a bundle. Now, could you also add an option for the primary color to just enter the hex code instead or using the sliders?
Brandon Martus
29-05-2003, 21:06
Someone else asked for that, I was going to add it but sidetracked. ...imagine that, sidetracked. :)
There's also a program floating around, probably available on download.com, called "Color Wheel Pro"
It allows you to see suggestions for analogous, monotone and complimentary color schemes. It's pretty neat.
sanddrag
29-05-2003, 21:49
There is also this to give you the hex of a color http://javascript.internet.com/page-details/hexadecimal-color-wheel.html
bretty spiffy mr. b (hehe... mr. B's woo!! good times... :) ; sorry side comment)
AJ Quick
29-05-2003, 23:21
That is great! Very helpful, it will really help as I feel picking colors is one of the hardest parts of webdesign. Looks like this can be a replacement of the color books I have.. that is basically the same thing. Pretty neat.
My colors will actually match now :)
tatsak42
30-05-2003, 16:56
Again, pretty spiffy! (Just to let you know, brandon, it doesn't work in phoenix... for that large majority that actually use phoenix)
jonathan lall
30-05-2003, 17:55
Originally posted by tatsak42
Again, pretty spiffy! (Just to let you know, brandon, it doesn't work in phoenix... for that large majority that actually use phoenix) ...By which you mean Mozilla Firebird™; about 0.4% of the market share. :) To be more specific, that means Gecko browsers in general (Mozilla, Firebird, K-Meleon, Netscape, Camino) don't like its Javascript. Opera doesn't really handle it well either, but I don't understand that code anyway.
Anyway, I'll shut up with the nitpicking. It's a nice tool, and is actually perfect for a site with a gazillion CSS styles I'm doing.
(edit: ooh bad grammar)
sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
*starts chant*
We love Brandon *clap-clap clapclapclap* We love Brandon *clap-clap clapclapclap* We love Brandon *clap-clap clapclapclap* .....
:D
--Petey
Brandon Martus
30-05-2003, 23:03
Originally posted by tatsak42
Again, pretty spiffy! (Just to let you know, brandon, it doesn't work in phoenix... for that large majority that actually use phoenix)
Yeah, nor in Opera.
When I need to use it, I load up IE just because its easier in the long run (until I get around to changing the code)
Trashed20
30-05-2003, 23:38
http://colormatch.dk/
i believe the authors website is http://vowe.net/
tatsak42
31-05-2003, 04:22
Originally posted by jonathan lall
...By which you mean Mozilla Firebird™; about 0.4% of the market share. :) To be more specific, that means Gecko browsers in general (Mozilla, Firebird, K-Meleon, Netscape, Camino) don't like its Javascript. Opera doesn't really handle it well either, but I don't understand that code anyway.
Anyway, I'll shut up with the nitpicking. It's a nice tool, and is actually perfect for a site with a gazillion CSS styles I'm doing.
(edit: ooh bad grammar)
Yes yes, I admit I was wrong, I really DO know that it changed to Firebird and that it runs on the same engine as mozilla and netscape. didn't know about Camino or K-Meleon, but I do now.
But again, yay for brandon. who loves brandon? eeeeverybody loves brandon :D
Raven_Writer
31-05-2003, 13:51
I love this tool!
To bad I found it a lil' late on the design-scale...but all well.
Thanks Brandon for finding this.
Flash version:
http://kohaistyle.com/scripts/quickcolor/
http://www.webwhirlers.com/colors/colourandweb.asp
wheeee!
LBK Rules
21-11-2004, 18:13
I thought I'd bump this thread back up since I thought it might be of use to anyone who dosn't know hex color-codes by heart.
One of the linked color wheels has been updated as well...
http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html
Love that thing.
Franchesca
24-11-2004, 01:02
Thank you very much! I was just thinking of how my team should go about picking new colors and this works!! :]
I had a pretty good idea of the colors that I want but this has shown me some interesting combinations ... good choices. I'm going to put this website on our team's forum and have the rest of the team look at it and pick a combination of colors that they would like for our team. ;)
Thank You AGAIN, Brandon ... sure makes things easier for the rest of us! :D
Jeff Rodriguez
24-11-2004, 11:22
Yeah, nor in Opera.
It works in Opera now, version 7.6.
IMDWalrus
24-11-2004, 16:41
It works in Opera now, version 7.6.
You ARE aware that he made his post well over a year ago, right? ;)
http://www.ulead.com/learning/web5/page1.htm has a great little article on color theory (written by a friend of mine).
http://www.ulead.com/learning/web5/page1.htm has a great little article on color theory (written by a friend of mine).
The article was nice, though it was more the mechanics of color than much about creating good color schemes. I thought I might share some comments based on experience, hope someone finds them useful. I actually do use color wheels (to get two colors), however once I have two colors there are two basic strategies I use.
1) High saturation primary colors. Colors with more saturation (basically #FF0000 instead of #990000 or #330000) are good. Pastel-only palettes are "bad". My experience early on was to use lots of pastels because they are pleasant on the eyes. The problem with pastel-only palettes is that you end up with very bland, weak feeling colors. Pick a primary color that you will occaisionally use to highlight things with lots of saturation. It feels weird at first (at least for me) because the highly saturated colors felt too eye-hurting, but play around a little.
2) Use different shades. What I like to do is take however many colors the color wheel throws at me and when in photoshop use different shades of it (use the color picker and play around with the B portion of the HSB color model. Heck, while you're at it, play around with the S to alter saturation ala suggestion 1). Shades are an easy way to maintain a strong visual "look" while still allowing visual differentiation between different parts of your site.
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