Design inspiration: colour your world

Maxine Sherrin 2nd July, 2013 @maxine

To me, colour is one of those mysteries like typography: I’ve got no idea how to get it right myself, but when I see something that is just perfect, I can recognise it.

We’ve all seen dozens of online colour pickers, but one I found this morning, called Colourcode, really stands out, and not just for the way they have spelled Colour :). Have a dig around, it’s got some great features hidden inside a deceptively simple interface. I thought the monochrome + grey options were especially handy.

Oh, and if like me you are struggling to differentiate your analogous from your complimentary (thanks @JohnMcClumpha!) then you really should check out colour harmonies.

For a bit of inspiration, here’s some beautiful examples of the use of colour in web sites.

MyOwnCorks

Analagous colour schemes are hard to get right – this site nails it! And with the help of Colourcode, you can too :)

Scroll for your health

Great use of a colour scheme against a washed out background.

Kite Studio

Another simple colour scheme to differentiate the different sections of the site.

Koa

First let me say I am highly skeptical about the whole concept of ‘organic water’, but I have to say, these guys have done a beautiful job of creating a colour scheme for the site which reflects that of the product.

United Pixel Workers

But what about when the (common) situation where you have lots of products and they come in all different colours? United Pixel Workers show us how it’s done.

Dear mum

Dear mum is a lovely site that lets you create a beautiful single page site, just for your mum on mother’s day. It really is nicely done and makes good use of the colours from the photo you upload to keep it all looking pretty!