rainbows can be elegant, can't they

October 20, 2007 10:39 PM

Please suggest elegant graphic/web/web-viewable designs featuring rainbows or rainbow-like/themed elements to inspire me. I'm working on a site for an organization with "Rainbow" in the name, and am having a hard time avoiding both hokeyness (on one end) and austerity (as I overcompensate).

It's for an event that is about kids -- a fund-raiser in support of a kids' health issue -- but it's also kind of uplifting, smiles-through-tears, beautiful. I'm just trying to avoid a Rainbow-Brite or scrawly refrigerator-art feel.

In avoiding the obvious extreme, I'm coming up with blue everywhere and just the rainbow logo for color.

It's hard to explain, but I'm looking for ideas and inspiration on how this problem may have been solved -- admittedly not in a way I could or would use identically -- in any medium.

The mood is cheerful, sensitive, organized, respectful, and "it's all about the kids" (1-2 years old through teenagers) although it's run by adults. And I'm an adult and expect to make something that looks professional.

Thanks in advance.

posted by amtho to media & arts (17 comments total)

Prisims could be a visual trope that could get you around the hokiness, but I don't know if that would fall too far under austere for you.
posted by Weebot at 10:45 PM on October 20, 2007

To be clear, I'm hoping for links to attractive, somewhat elegant images or web sites.

Thanks, Weebot - that's an idea.
posted by amtho at 10:49 PM on October 20, 2007

http://www.stardust.tv/ -- Very colorful Rainbow themed ads. Go through both the recent work and their portfolio. You can do a lot with gradients and color and shapes, etc. that doesn't look hoaky or is in the standard rainbow shape.

Actually, the StarDust site has been redesigned and is less colorful than it used to be, you can find old screenshots at http://www.joshuadavis.com/ (Click under Projects, on Web)

Joshua Davis also has some other pretty colorful work that could help inspire you.
posted by banished at 11:56 PM on October 20, 2007

Well there's always the old apple logo.

These are just desktop wallpapers off socwall, but they're kinda neat:
[1][2]
posted by juv3nal at 11:56 PM on October 20, 2007

I'm also very fond of the color / rainbow emotions the Vimeo login page evokes.
posted by banished at 11:58 PM on October 20, 2007

Don't forget the new radiohead album "In Rainbows"
posted by jonathanstrange at 12:32 AM on October 21, 2007

I'm not overly keen on the grey background (although the site is aimed at adults) but something like this could be a good model. You could use something like the first socwall wallpaper as the header background image (there is plenty of early childhood clipart photography at iStock to lay over it) and do off-color ROYGBIV navigation down the side - I like shades of orange and green the designer selected there.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:35 AM on October 21, 2007

Smiles through tears makes me think of the rainbows on the surface of a puddle of oil.
posted by textilephile at 12:41 AM on October 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

Dumpster-Diving for Dollars Filter: take a bevy of Rattus rattus avians, and do a gradual closeup of a single neck.
posted by rob511 at 2:18 AM on October 21, 2007

Yeah, the In Rainbows site is back to a flash background (which it was for just a couple hours before switching to an ugly screenshot due to the massive traffic) and it's quite pretty, and although it's far too abstract to be a direct inspiration, it's certainly not Rainbow Brite.
posted by abcde at 3:08 AM on October 21, 2007

Barbelith cleverly uses a rainbow design. Depending on the content of your website this could be an example or just inspiration.
posted by lioness at 4:57 AM on October 21, 2007

http://www.typedifferent.com/2000/index.html

The rainbow typeface from well respected Swiss graphic designers Buro Destruct. View the wallpaper and see how they have iconised the idea of a rainbow in the lower left corner.
posted by stackhaus23 at 8:20 AM on October 21, 2007

I love this old Air Canada design.
posted by rjt at 9:07 AM on October 21, 2007

Rainbow Grocery uses thin, spaced colored lines. They also do a black-and-white version on shopping bags and such; still clearly identifiable as a rainbow.
posted by trevyn at 9:56 AM on October 21, 2007

Images do it for me - if you search Google images on the various country sites (e.g. google.fr) using the word for rainbow in that language you get some great images that might get the brain fizzing.

An example of arc-en-ciel via google.fr

An example of Regenbogen at google.de

arcobaleno at google.it

regenboog at google.nl

?????? at google.ru

and so on.
posted by ceri richard at 10:00 AM on October 21, 2007

Here's a page where fans are designed cover art for In Rainbows, and there are some truly inspired, elegant rainbows in there: lots of good ideas.
posted by emyd at 10:05 AM on October 21, 2007

Try also searching through istockphoto - they have a lot of great Vector art imagery that could get your inspiration started.
posted by rmm at 11:11 AM on October 21, 2007