The BEST free colour tools & sites online

Written by Jacob Cass on Sunday, December 16, 2007 – 3:10 pm

Colour whether you like it or not, is one of the most important parts of any design or artwork. It has the potential to make or break your work and this is why I have compiled a list of the best colour tools online. You can use these sites to help you out as they implement colour schemes for you, provide resources and give you inspiration.

My favourites and the ones I use regularly have a smiley next to it.

The Ultimate Colour Resource

Colour Lovers - The ultimate resource in my opinion for colour in general. It is great for choosing a colour scheme and the site also monitors trends and gives power to its users. You can submit news, read articles & interviews and compare colour palettes and add comments. It’s great!

Choosing a colour scheme / palette

KrazyDad - Experimental Colour Picker

Etsy.com - A creative and fun way of choosing a colour

Color Blender – A free online colour matching system including palettes. You can choose one colour and then it suggest a cool blend for you.

Ficml.org Colour Wheel - An addictive and very colourful way of choosing a colour scheme.

Colour Schemer - This one isn’t actually free but definitely worth mentioning. It is a small program that implements colour schemes for you. I havn’t actually tried it myself but the screen shots look great.

Photo Colour Matcher - This is quite a handy tool as it lets you have a picture and then it matches that picture to get a colour palette. Great for brochures or things that have to match around a central image.

Colour Matching Sphere - Another cool way to choose a colour scheme

Colour Inspiration

Stock Photographs - Use Flickr or iStockPhoto to get some colour inspiration. Try searching for things related to the piece of work you are working on.

UrbanCowboy and 57Even - These are two of my favourite artists who use great colour schemes in their work.

Other Tools

Web 2.0 Color Palette - If you don’t know about Web 2.0 I suggest you check this out.A great tool for anything Web 2.0

A bit of fun

Some forbidden colour schemes

How room colours can effect your mood

Colour Theory - Great for developers

Quiz - A quiz to find out what colour you are.

Scariest Colours Imaginable - Speaks for itself.

Colours of the Top Magazines

Why Red is so powerful

Colourblind test - A test to see how colour blind you are.

Colours For Christmas - Palettes for that time of year.

Hope you found this a fun & resourceful list on colour.

Spread The Word:

StumbleUpon | del.icio.us | Design Float | Digg | Design Bump

Related Articles:

• Want to know how to design? Learn The Basics. (47)
• Top 5 Typography Resources (15)
• The Best Time Of The Day To Do Things As A Designer (32)
• The best mouse for Designers and Web Addicts (35)

Tags: Color, Colour, Resources
Posted in Graphic Design