When it comes to colors...

http://colourlovers.com/
http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html
and the book COLOURS
Koolhaas, Foster, Mendini
publisher: Birkhauser

I find most explanations on colour theory quite deficient. It may be mathematically elegant to demonstrate complementary and triadic and tetradic colours and what-have-you all around the colour wheel, and then claim those make good combinations. But they don't really, and that doesn't give you any understanding of colour. The best they'll give you is colours that contrast a lot. Whoop de doo.

Your brain doesn't interpret colours equally around a mathematical wheel. You feel a blue differently than you feel a red or an orange. Light red looks like a whole new colour (pink), whereas light yellow is just light yellow.

The situation gets even more complex when you put colours together. The same shade of green might look bluish when put next to a bright yellowish green, and it might look olive next to a teal. A colour that looks boring takes on character when put in context with other hues, and similar colours tend to bring out the individual flavours more than contrasting colours.

My advice is just to experiment. Whenever you see colours that look interesting together, take a picture or a screen-capture and save it. Try to figure out what's going on. See how the nature of each colour by itself differs from the combination.

Also be aware of your own limitations. Some people don't see colour as well as others without realizing it. My wife's colour acuity, for example, is not as good as mine is.

Colour is very hard to master!

This is something I too have been struggling with for a while. Good color choice can really make or break a design. Completely Nailing the emotion you are going for or completely destroying it. I also agree and find it interesting to hear someone else say that the color wheel theories are often not as cut and dry as articles and color scheme generators try and make them. I am really digging that COLOURlovers site, awesome. I have been looking for something exactly like that for years now, Thanks!!

This doesn't have much about color theory, but it's an awesome online (free) tool for choosing colors... http://www.colorblender.com/

You can see his original, more simplified version here... http://colormatch.dk/

paul burd \\ multimedia designer
portfolio \\ weblog

Color stuff

Get your fix of design software tips, tricks & commentary.

when I was interviewed for a web design job, that I am horrible with color. I got the job anyhow. ;)
I have found that I will use pictures that seem soothing and I will sample the different colors on the picture.
I use www.colorcombos.com to make my pallette afterwards. It makes a great swatch image that I use in my photoshop files.
Otherwise, it is totally guesswork for me too.

At bamagazine.com you can download a free chapter on how to find matching colors from a photo:
http://www.bamagazine.com/6Hare6Land.asp

Be careful with those online color palatte choosers, they're devoted to RGB/HEX colors which are entirely different than CMYK. I'd suggest you follow some of the other suggestions on books or classes. You'll get a better feel for how colors interact and then when doing print design (I guess I'm assuming that you do that) you'll choose your colors from pantone books, color swatches or on screen then printing out color blocks to see how they actually interact.

Visit My Website!: - David Bailey - graphic artist - ONLINE PORTFOLIO -

I really like http://colorlovers.com

They have grown over the last few mothsn and have great pallets and colors to choose from.

Thanks a lot for all the great replies, good stuff!

Yeah.. And thanks again..

a good way to get more in tune with colors is by experimenting with traditional as well as digital media. taking a color from an object and making it with acrylic or oil paint is a good way to refresh some color sense. mixing colors by creating pleasing gradients in PS and studying them and the way you feel when you look at them is a similar approach. i found practicing with gradients and stuff to be a good way to get a feel of showing more penetrating emotion . painter (the program) is good too! ...

pantone colors were mentioned, and additional colors outside of the CMYK inks can also be metallic or lustrious (special formulas!). New printing technologies allow whole metallic spectrums to be printed with just one 5th color (spot color) . with printing it is important to realize that you can do more with color than you will see on the screen.

varnishes and coatings affect the color and feel of the piece, as do special printing processes like raised ink, die cutting, embossing, etc.

Learn the color wheel..i.e. complementary colors, split comps, triads, etc.
Then it just depends on the mood and feeling your going for with each design.

Often times I'll do the same design and make copies of it with different color palettes then judge which one looks best. Be confident in your color choices.

I'm a trained painter and designer, and have taught graphic design, web design, painting, and color theory for 9 years. I think there's value in EVERYONE's comments here, simply because there is no way to learn color. That is to say, there is no single way to learn color.

This is MY way. It's only one way, but I hope it's useful to others as it has been to me and hundreds of students in this very common and confining feeling predicament.

Start with this precept: Color's existence cannot be verified outside of perception. Ergo, no color can exist on its own. Why? Because your eyes/brain cannot accurately perceive any color without a contextualizing other color. Automatically, therefore, perceiving color of any kind becomes a compare/contrast exercise. Give me a neutral gray and I can make it look red, green, orange, yellow, blue - anything I want - simply by contextualizing it correctly.

If you accept that admittedly somewhat trippy premise - I do - it makes sense to think about color as a whole, in terms of metaphors. Two of my favorites are CUISINE and MUSIC.

Cuisine is wonderful because flavors only count in the right ammounts. We take this for granted, particularly those of us who have sprinkled too much salt one afternoon on our corn cob. Some flavors are delicate and need to be couched next to other subtle flavors in order to be noticed (achiote, certain fats, citrus zest). Other flavors are so intense that only a tiny bit can be overwhelming (cumin, coriander, curry-family spices, cayenne). Still others serve as good "backgrounds" against which to paint a culinary picture (rice, beans, breads, pasta). Trying to understand cooking as simply what food goes better where, is blunt and misleading. It is the context-sensitive balancing act, and exhaustive trial and error and visualization, that train a chef.
For a designer, a triad of muted earthtones may be like bread to a cook. A hot orange for certain categories of type (a la creative bits) may be like an olive tapenade to spread on the bread. Think in terms like that, and you'll develop a certain type of understanding of color.

Music is also wonderful, and commonly used as a metaphorical language with which to critique visual art. Think of the difference between rhythm guitar, or bass guitar, and a piccolo, or even something less conventional like a baby's scream used as instrumentation. One reliable, ubiquitous, generating expectations and creating an environment. The other sharp, sudden, startling, perhaps evoking strong emotional response for its perceived inappropriateness. Again, we're talking about context. And again, you can think of color using the language of music as a metaphorical framework. Once again, train yourself to think in terms like this and you'll develop yet another type of understanding of color.

Furthermore, if you tend to like peanut butter and jelly rather than Indian food, you'll arrive at a different understanding of color. SImilarly, a jazz enthusiast using music as a metaphor for color will come to a completely different color sensibility than a metal head would.

The more potential metaphors you can identify, and the more you can stretch your mind to relate to those alternate languages' structures and rules, variations, etc, the more sophisticated and subtle your understanding of color possibilities will become. It's a lifelong pursuit, and it's really exciting stuff for those willing to make it that.

I really like what Geoff said above. On the other hand, I do find that having a solid grounding in color theory is very valuable for design work. Here are a couple of excellent articles on the subject, directed specifically to the web designer:

http://www.linuxguruz.com/z.php?id=58
http://www.linuxguruz.com/z.php?id=59

http://poynterextra.org/cp/colorproject/color.html
[Flash required]
- The Power of Color
- The Physiology & Theory of Color
- Color, Contrast and Dimension
- Color on the Web
- Eye-trac Research
- Bibliography

Arvana is absolutely correct. A solid grounding in color theory can only help. To that end, I'm surprised no one has suggested the most classic color theory book of all: Johannes Itten's The Elements of Color (on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471289299/qid=1123506215/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-4517756-4148814?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

It's the gold standard for color theory. Definitely get a copy if you're trying to better your color theory.

One other useful, more concrete recommendation I can make: Go to your local Home Depot, Lowe's, or whatever home improvement center you've got in your parts, and take 2 of every paint color swatch they have for interior and exterior latex paint. It's not stealing - those samples are out there to inspire, and no one minds a designer coming in to stock up from time to time.
You'll have a color library few can rival, and you can mix and match those swatches for surprising results of which you'll never tire.

What a great productive thread!

//GB