It's a colorful world!

The other night at dinner we went around the table and told about our favorite color and why it was our favorite. Mine is green. For many reasons. But I love green more than any other hue, and try to incorporate it into my designs as much as possible. I think a close second is teal or the pale blues you see on this site. And then there's orange, and mustard yellow, and plum... I could go on and on about my color combos of preference. As an artist and designer, I've been creating color relationships since I was a wee five-year-old in art class at the botanical gardens. But where do I go as a grown-up color-craver for inspiration? I have a few fun sites to get the creative juices flowing:
1. Pantone & their color of the year. Pantone is a universal color matching system, used for identifying inks in the printing world. It ensures that the designer, printer, and final product are all on the same page (pardon the pun). I reference them often for inspiration, even though I am not doing as much print design these days. Each year Pantone selects a color to represent the entire year. This year it is the sweet and cheery springtime color, Honeysuckle:

Here's what Pantone has to say about their color of the year: "Courageous. Confident. Vital. A brave new color, for a brave new world. Let the bold spirit of Honeysuckle infuse you, lift you and carry you through the year. It’s a color for every day—with nothing 'everyday' about it." Find out more about Pantone HERE.

2. Colorstrology. OK, this is more like an extension of #1 because it's inspired and perpetuated by Pantone. But it's awesome!! It's color astrology, and it's oddly right-on. You just find your birthday, and it assigns you a color, and tells you some uncanny things you might have already known about yourself, but never knew that Colorstrology knew. Find Colorstrology HERE. Beware! This site is addictive. You'll be checking out the colors for everyone you've ever known (as long as you know their b-day). Here's mine:

3. Kuler. Created by Adobe, and possibly pronounced "color" or maybe "cooler" (?) ...  Either way, this site is one cool color resource! Type in any word you fancy to find color combinations inspired by and suited for your project. Then you can grab the color value, and plug it right into your photo-editing or design program. Find Kuler HERE. I tried "beehive." This was my favorite combo:
4. How About Orange. My very favorite color lovin' blog is How About Orange. I admit I am orange with envy over her amazing talent. But I so enjoy every post from this blog! Find the juice HERE.