31 Color Resources Every Designer Should Know

Color is definitely one of the most important components of a website design. It can determine the success of every project you will ever work on. If your color combination is chosen badly, you can easily bury your website, no matter how good content it may have. On the other hand - website with poor content, but with great color scheme will easily attract more visitors then you would expect. In this post I will look at most useful, mostly online tools, that can help you to avoid the mistake that many people do and to chose colors for your projects wisely and with confidence.

Color scheme libraries

• Colour Lovers -a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews - there also is a Colour Lovers Adobe AIR application
• ColorCombos - The heart of the site is the Combo Tester, which allows web developers to see how different color combinations work together on the screen.
• Genopal - For creating harmonious color schemes online, there also is a desktop application
• Adobe Kuler - there also is a Kuler Adobe Air application

Color scheme generators

• ColorSchemeDesigner - online application for creating color schemes, complete solution with web page preview
• Color Schemer Studio - my choice for complete desktop solution, has also an online scheme gallery
• ColorJack - intuitive, easy to use online tool with export options
• ColorBlender - online tool for color matching and palette design with export options
• ColorExplorer - create, manage, and explore color palettes for use in web designs, desktop publishing, or any other graphic design process

Get color scheme from website & image

• Color Palette Generator - Enter the URL of an image to get a color palette that matches the image
• I Like Your Colors - Type the URI of a page and submit it to see what colors it uses
• Color Palette Generator - Upload an image and get a color palette

Color deficiency simulators

One of 15 people have some form of color blindness. This tools help you simulate the appearance of our site's colors for people with different color visions.

• Color Vision
• Colour Blindness Simulator
• Vischeck

Color theory

• Colors, contrast & dimension in news design - an interactive guide that explains color theory and shows how to use it in design through examples and excercises
• Color in motion - an interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism
• The meaning of colors - find out what colours and combinations of colours stimulate people to be interested in different things. See what colors mean across the countries.
• Color theory - color can be a complicated thing, this guide is to aid you in your understanding of color, what it is and how it works

Color tools and browser plugins

• Pixie - the color picker designed especially for web designers and graphic artists.
• ColorZilla - Advanced Eyedropper, Color Picker, Palette Viewer and other colorful goodies for your Firefox

Background patterns

Create, browse and download background patterns for your design

• BG Patterns
• DinPattern
• Ava7Patterns
• EveryDayIcons patterns
• Patterrific

Bonus goodies

• Multicolr Search Lab - Flickr images color search
• Name that Color - Do you have a color but don't know its name? Find it out...
• Colourmod - Color Conversion tools
• The Web2.0 colours of 2007 - Adobe Photoshop swatches
• Ultimate Web 2.0 Layer Styles - Adobe Photoshop styles