Do you define yourself as a creative? I’m of the opinion that if you are living and breathing, you have the ability to create and contribute to the world in your own unique way. Some of us choose to pursue our creativity more than others. If you’re like me, you’re constantly pursuing inspiration or rely on a set of tools to build on new ideas. Color inspires my creativity and I equip myself with 3 tools that I couldn’t design without.
Sherwin-Williams ColorSnap for iPhone: This handy smart phone app allows me the ability to capture colors that I might find when I’m out and about; you can then match that to one of 1,500 Sherwin-Williams’ paint colors. Available for iPhone, Blackberry, and Android, this free app will also create a custom palette of colors that complement your color. For print and web designers, paint chips aren’t helpful on their own, only an inspiration. If I find a color that I might want to use in a new design, I will convert the paint code/name to a matching RGB value using EasyRGB.
Adobe Kuler: It’s like a social network for color enthusiasts. This free web-hosted application is used by many designers for generating color themes. No matter what you’re creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community. And because it’s an Adobe product, you can add your newly created color theme to the swatches panel with one click.- PMS to RGB chart: I count myself lucky in that before I ever built a website, I was trained in print design. That knowledge has served me well. The print world uses the PMS color standard, and from time-to-time I will have clients provide me with PMS colors that need to be converted for the Web. If you do a quick Google search, you will find lots of conversion charts for RGB, Hex, CMYK, etc. I found this display of color swatches matching PMS to RGB created by Jon Plummer. I really like the simplicity of the layout.
