Resources for choosing color palettes

October 26, 2021 12:23 PM

What are some good resources for choosing colors that 'work' together? I feel like I'm looking for the Flavor Bible, but for colors. Bonus points if they provide those hexadecimal codes.

Prefer online resources but open to books as well. Also, I'm familiar with color theory, but want to look at a selection of already chosen colors and think about them. Lastly, I'm also interested in very limited palettes for an unrelated painting project. Any ideas would help, thanks.

posted by asimplemouse to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

ColorBrewer? It's what I use for data visualization suggestions a bunch.
posted by adekllny at 12:29 PM on October 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel

https://color.adobe.com/explore

https://color.adobe.com/trends
posted by jonathanhughes at 12:34 PM on October 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Adobe Color
http://colormind.io
http://khroma.co
Color Palettes from Cinema
posted by supercres at 12:35 PM on October 26, 2021

Coolors
posted by emelenjr at 12:46 PM on October 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color, by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel. Originally published in 1902. Sample pages.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:59 PM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

ColourLovers
posted by mezzanayne at 1:07 PM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

A Dictionary of Color Combinations was created by Japanese kimono maker and stage designer Wada Sanyo as a reference for his student. It’s apparently now available online, although the book is a lovely object in and of itself.
posted by chrisulonic at 1:23 PM on October 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Color Calculator
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:24 PM on October 26, 2021

Does your target audience include those with different kinds of color blindness? Most tools do not consider color theory that includes this audience. This can be an issue for data science, particularly, but for any kind of communication this can sometimes be a design consideration.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:29 PM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

I like the easy/free web toolPaletton for playing/learning about these sorts
of combinations.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:58 PM on October 26, 2021

Movies in color.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 9:45 PM on October 26, 2021

Response by poster: Thank you all so much for these great resources! Very helpful and very appreciated.
posted by asimplemouse at 10:39 PM on October 26, 2021

Search Pinterest for Color Palette and you will find many palettes (and the inspiration for them) and you can save them. PowerPoint can give you the RGB if you have a shape selected and use the eye-dropper. I have a few saved at Pinterest myself.
posted by b33j at 12:28 AM on October 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Picular picks colors based on a text prompt.

Your Friendly Guide to Colors in Data Visualization is a good read. It starts with Color Brewer; that definitely should be a starting point if you are doing data science. Has lots of good advice, including specifics on color blindness.
posted by Nelson at 9:44 AM on October 27, 2021