So here's a cheeky little project for you this weekend. Make some super cool colour palettes for your next product, or even for your next brand rejig.
It's quite surprising how addictive this can be, so be prepared, you may well just be starting off on your new obsession.
What will you need
• Photoshop
• Your camera, camera phone or some existing photos you like
• Some time and a little effort
Funnily enough, and I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but with all my design skillz (ahem) and eye for detail, I really struggle putting colours together. I couldn't imagine how many hours I've wiled away looking for the perfect mix on Google. On the rare occasion that I buy new clothes I'm thrown into a panic with anything more than black and white, blue or teal.
So a couple of days ago I was flicking through my phone pictures and I fell a little bit in love with some leaves I shot (oof, sounds a bit graphic) over Christmas. I loved the mad colour mix that nature had thrown together, and you know what? they worked perfectly. I emailed some images to myself and opened them in Photoshop and here's the result of that first leaf collection.
There's a couple of ways to do this in Photoshop, you can either save the palette directly into the program as a colour swatch or create files that you can open and print and have at your disposal whenever you like. I prefer the way I'm using here as I once tried the other option and ended up losing all my colours!
Just because I love you, I found a tutorial for the 'hard' way here.
Here's what I did...
First off, select the rectangle tool. Then create a blank file in whatever size you like and create as many blocks as you want. Next, open the photo you want to work with. I chose one from a blog post I wrote a while back. Now select the eyedropper tool.
Using the dropper, select your first colour, I found that going from light to dark really helped the overall palette. Select the paint bucket tool, then click on the first block to fill with the first shade. Then go back to the dropper and continue pulling out colours to add to your swatch until you're happy.
What now?
Well, we've got our beautiful colour swatch but what use is it other than looking pretty? If you're a graphic designer then these are brilliant as you'll always have them to hand to use in your work. Maybe you make jewellery, you could use some nature palettes from your garden to inspire your seasonal pieces. Are you thinking of repainting your home? Well guess what, most DIY stores can mix specific colours for you, why not print out and take in your palette.
Here are some other sets I made from images I took from my garden.
Enjoy.
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