Ah coloring books. The fondest of childhood memories wouldn’t be complete without the recollection of coloring books and learning to shade inside the lines. The beginning of lessons about order. Remember color by numbers? Those books that had numbers corresponding to different colors. Maybe you liked to fill in the right colors, but if you were like me as a child, you never wanted to follow the instructions. I’d color landscapes so bizarre Dahli would be impressed. Still, maybe you were perplexed and didn’t know what color scheme to use. If that’s still your case, and you can’t decide what color would accent your freshly painted Sky Blue walls the best, have I got the solution for you!
The word is Kuler. This remarkable website (hosted by Adobe) is an online community where members can create, upload, share, rate, search, download, and comment on different color schemes. You don’t have to be a professional designer to sign up and join, but you do need to register on the adobe sever (Don’t worry, it’s free unlike the majority of Adobe products. Yeah Creative Suite, I’m talking to you!) and have the latest version of adobe Flash installed on your web browser. The color schemes can be download as a Adobe Swatch File which are conveniently compatible with the entire Adobe line, and makes them that much easier to use.
You don’t have to be a designer to see how the website can be useful. Maybe you’ve been wanting to paint your room with an ocean/beach theme, but just haven’t been able to decide on the right colors. Simply search “ocean” or “beach” in the Kuler search bar and begin flipping through thousands of results. Or, maybe you’re designing a poster for an awesome 80’s dance party you’re throwing and you need colors that scream, “I’m so bright and bursting with neon energy you can’t ignore me!!” Just search “1980s” or “neon”. Just a tip, I’d advice you to try and keep your search phrases to one word. Hey, even if the color results aren’t exactly what you’re looking for you can tweak them to your liking right there on the website.
catchy names are not automatically generated
Ok I’ll admit, maybe I like this site a little bit more than the average person because I’m a graphic designer, but that shouldn’t stop you from checking it out for any of your color scheme interests/problems. It’s much better than flipping through those giant books of color swatches they have at paint stores (because I, for one, don’t know anyone who enjoys staring at 250 samples of different greens, all with names like “Sassy Green” or “Spring Lime” or “Shallow Valley”). So go check out Kuler.com, even if just to play around on the site, I bet you’ll find the color solution you didn’t even know you were looking for.
