Creating Complimentary Color Combos

I will bet you never thought of this quick and easy way to find complimentary color combinations. One of our designers is adamant about the effectiveness of this technique.

Let's imagine for a moment that you surf upon a really neat website and you find the color combinations attractive. You then design your website with these colors by sampling the colors used with your graphics software. Are you still with me?

Okay, let's say that you are driving through the city and you see a sign, storefront or a person's shirt that you find attractive. Why did it attract your attention? Most likely because of the colors. Don't you think then that designing your website with these colors will also attract attention to your site visitors?

But how on earth do you remember what colors were in the object you saw? Seeing color combinations in real life is quite different than taking a sampling online. You could make a mental note or write down a few memories on paper. But most likely your memory will fade when you get back to your office, open your graphics software and sit there without a clue what to do first.

You can capture the color combinations on that sign, storefront or person's shirt quite easily with a digital camera. The colors may not be exact when transferred to your computer as you saw them in real life, but it will certainly jog your memory to tweak the hues/tones once you open the image into your graphics program. You may be surprised to find that you finish the project with a completely different set of color combos that you like better.

Do you have one of those fancy picture-taking cell phones that can email you or someone else the photos you take? There you go! Quite convenient, yes?

If the color combinations you saw were on something that you can bring back to the office with you such as a wallpaper sample, fabric swatch, business card, brochure, etc. you can scan (assuming you have a scanner) the item as long as it is relatively flat and then manipulate the hues/tones in your graphics software.

If you have a great deal of cash to burn, you could invest in one of those new USB2 digital camera keychain. Now that's the most expensive keychain I have ever seen. :)
Hi-Tech Digital Camera Keychain