Nature’s Guide

Selecting a color palette is a crucial, and often harrowing, step in the design process. Even with the help of color wheels, countless formulas for color harmonies, and palettes based on analogous and complementary colors, the decision to pick the perfect color scheme remains difficult. Looking to nature for a starting point can provide guidance and inspiration in color selection.

Animals, insects, leaves and flowers provide ready-made color palettes that serve a purpose in nature, and can easily translate to a design. If a design requires a bold, eye-catching palette, referencing the alarmingly bright colors of a poisonous snake may help. Butterfly wings come in a wide assortment of colors, ranging from understated and elegant, to bold and dynamic. Finding an image of tropical bird with multi-colored plumage, then eye-dropping colors from its feathers, is a fun and unconventional way to obtain a color palette. The functions that these palettes serve in nature, whether to entice or placate, can do the same when applied to a design project.

Referencing plants and flowers during specific seasons may help accelerate the color selection process. A predominantly white color scheme can be eye-dropped from winter foliage and snow-covered landscapes, while soft pastels and can be pulled from springtime flowering plants. Earth tones and deep reds emerge in a spectacular array of combinations in the autumn, while summertime plants provide bright, vivid hues.

Finding an image to pull colors from can be quick and simple. For example, typing “sunset” into the Flickr search produces a myriad of beautiful photography to eye-drop colors from.

Websites such as the DeGrave Color Palette Generator and Color Hunter generate color palettes based on a specific image uploaded by the user.

For those who need a quick color scheme without the time to search for images, a wide array of color generating websites come in handy. Colour Lovers has palettes organized by print, web, craft, home, fashion and wedding, as well as blogs and forums dedicated to sharing and inspiring color usage. Color Scheme Designer has many helpful options, such as export options for HTML, CSS, and XML to assist web designers. Aviary.com has their Toucan color generator tool based on a circular color wheel that produces palette combinations in five unique ways. The number of related colors, saturation and value, among other options, can further adjust the color palette. Color swatches can be brought onto a clipboard and saved, where the hex, cmyk, rgb, hsv and hsl values are recorded. There is also an image picker option, as well as a color deficiency preview window.

When the color-wheel spins in one too many directions, look to nature and wildlife for focus and direction. Both house unlimited and unique color palettes waiting to be eye-dropped and altered to fit your specific design needs.

Read more posts by Marina Linderman