Paperie Boutique • products, packaging and marketing ideas for professional photographers

Jan201006

One of the most difficult things about launching a business or rebranding is deciding “what” looks like you. And defining your brand / logo also involves selecting the colors that will in turn make you stand out above all the rest. Be it classic, funky, timeless, modern, elegant, or shabby-chic — the colors you choose will be the exclamation point to finish the statement.

So what’s a photorapher to do?

A great site to check out is colorcombos.com. The site will allow you to view various color-combos together, or create your own. You can enter a color hex value and find related color-libraries. (For instance, this is the combo library for lemon yellow.) The site even has a color combo tester.

Another big help is the “color index: Over 1100 Color Combinations, CMYK and RGB Formulas, for Print and Web Media“. And the follow-up “color index 2: Over 1500 New Color Combinations for Print and Web Media – CMYK and RGB Formulas“. (Or you can buy both of these books combined in the “complete color index: Over 2600 Color Combinations“.)

From Amazon.com: “Each color palette includes a swatch, an example of the colors used in a design, and accurate CMYK and RGB formulas, making it easy for you to find appropriate colors and implement them immediately. The palettes in “color index” are divided into categories based on the moods they evoke, while the palettes in “color index 2” are based on color families. No matter your preferred method for searching, you’ll be able to easily reference hundreds of hues at a glance.”

I have The Designers “complete index” set myself (which includes the “color index“, the “idea index“, and the “layout index“). They’ve been invaluable to me during my years as a web designer, then photographer.

UPDATE: Don’t miss another great link / site review posted in the comments!

So what are you waiting for? You have all the links. Now go play!

If you’re interested in having your own business packaging, marketing ideas, or photography-related products featured please contact me (my e-mail is in the sidebar and is robyn @ this domain – or you can leave a comment).

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4 Responses to “Roy G. Biv”

1
Heather James on January 6th, 2010

I also use colorlovers.com- great resource for seeing other’s palettes as well. You can create an account and save colors, palettes and patterns that you can refer to from anywhere! Color is key in any brand, so this is a great post to help other’s find their color brand!
2
robyn on January 6th, 2010

Thank you so much for the link – I’ll update the post to check the comments!
3
Antonina Mamzenko on January 7th, 2010

I also use Kuler – http://kuler.adobe.com/ or through Window – Extensions in Photoshop & Illustrator (limited functionality in this case). I like that I can create various pallets (or borrow someone else’s) and then save them as Adobe swatch files.

But it is still so hard to finalise your colour and stop playing with them!
4
Mariann on January 9th, 2010

I just learned to knit over the holiday break. I read this, bookmarked the page in case I needed it again, then went on to make a scarf in something solid. Then it hit me, while I paging through pattern books and wondering when I could make something snazzy… the color swatch site you’ve shared is perfect to compare/combine colors for knitting, too. True, it’s not an exact fit for whatever dye job comes with the yarn, but it sure gives me good idea of what look for in the stores. Bravo!