Color Inspiration

In this post, Tavia finds inspiration for color palettes from a free source ...

I often use stock photo sites like istockphoto.com and shutterstock.com for placing comp (free, low-resolution, watermarked) images for client approval. These sites are useful for finding just the right image for my layouts. They also provide a free, hi-resolution "image of the week". While these specific images are usually beautiful photos, I find that I don't utilize them in my design work because of their broad subject matter.

I recently came across a few of these photos, and I found inspiration in their bold colors. I decided to create color palettes from these free downloads, and here's what I came up with:

These color palettes could be used in one-time layouts or entire branding guidelines. I could also add them to the colourlovers.com site. This is a great resource for creating, sharing and searching color palettes.

You never know when color inspiration will strike, but when it does, have fun creating your own unique palettes!