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A Useful Website Color Scheme Tool

markling
 
A Useful Website Color Scheme Tool

Hi everyone,

I've been going back and forth with a wordpress theme development company to help me design a new wordpress theme for some of my affiliate sites and we ran into issues trying to communicate the color scheme options.

Then I found a great free tool called Color Scheme Designer and I used it to create several color schemes to communicate to the designer.

Seeing as the tool was so useful to me, I thought many of you reading this may also benefit from it as I know how frustrating it can be to get a mix of colors for your website that looks right. Especially if you're not a graphic designer yourself.

Take a look below at a couple of color schemes I created in about 10 seconds using this tool:

Click here to see my blue theme

 

Click here to see my purple theme

You can use this tool to adjust the scheme colors, just click 'adjust theme' then 'adjust variants'


You can see what your color scheme will look like on a webpage by clicking 'light page example' or 'dark page example' below the color scheme.

I prefer to stick to 'Mono' color themes, though you can have a play around with all the various settings.

You might noticed a bug or two when using this, just do a hard refresh on the root domain, colorschemedesigner.com, if that happens and you can keep playing.

I'm keen to hear your comments, have fun!

Mark

39 Comments
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BinaryHaiku at 23:42 16 Jun 2011
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Two others sites I have used for ideas are ColourLovers and Adobe's Kuler.

http://www.colourlovers.com
http://kuler.adobe.com
uwspstar at 14:55 17 Jun 2011
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I tried the different color, the tool pretty cool.
Winston Thomas at 15:01 17 Jun 2011
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Is the tool strictly for use with Wordpress?
Or can it be used with Static Websites as well?
Red Denal at 15:03 17 Jun 2011
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This is very helpful Mark. Thanks for sharing. This could be more helpful if already integrated in a wordpress or blogger platform application.
Tim at 15:11 17 Jun 2011
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This is great resource. I visited it a couple of times a year or so ago, and then forgot about it, so thanks for the reminder. Personally, I think the complementary ones are just awesome, makes it possible to create a quite professional-looking site.

I have just been having a look at the suggestions by binaryhaiku, and I think they could be very useful as well!
Holly Day at 15:32 17 Jun 2011
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Exactly what I was looking for as I'm working on a new site right now and desperately needed ideas to match colors together.
Bill at 15:35 17 Jun 2011
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Great, we are always looking for "easy" does it's Thanks,
sex at 15:43 17 Jun 2011
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Two others sites I have used for ideas are ColourLovers and Adobe's Kuler.
Richard at 15:55 17 Jun 2011
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Muchos Gracias Markos,

Just what I needed to color a wp fanpage theme..I have left the job because of being indecisive with this part of the project. Now I can move forward.. thanks for the email. Your purple theme is a stunner.
Hans at 16:06 17 Jun 2011
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Thanks! this was very useful for me. I have a lot of sites and actually all my life I have been randomly selecting colors I felt went with each other. I never stopped a second to consider it actually was a kind of "science" getting hues and varients to match up.
David Nielsen at 16:13 17 Jun 2011
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Thanks Mark, really nice. I have one, but this is better...
Sue Jenks at 16:29 17 Jun 2011
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wow, this is a good tool! Thank you Mark Ling. It makes designing sites so much easier and quicker.

I could have had this tool when I was doing all my other sites. lol!

Franklin at 16:39 17 Jun 2011
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Cool.. just wondering what else I could use it for, who knows maybe in the future... thanks for the free info..
Physiotherapy Beckenham at 16:49 17 Jun 2011
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I've used the Color Scheme Designer before and found it to be great, although the tool that we couldn't live without when we were building http://www.theclinicfinder.com/ was http://0to255.com/ - it's absolutely awesome! You give it a base color and it just gives you the entire palette of related colors, e.g. http://0to255.com/ff8000.
Traderjo1 at 16:53 17 Jun 2011
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Thanks for the tip, Mark!
Brad Waller at 17:11 17 Jun 2011
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I saw your email and had to check out what you had. Lo an behold your favorite is my latest favorite as well. Nice to see you agree that this is a great tool. One other I have used in the past is http://www.colorjack.com/
Kathy Adams at 17:48 17 Jun 2011
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Very nice tool. Thanks for sharing.
Sanjiv at 18:01 17 Jun 2011
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Thanx Mark,
That was useful. This will help change colors in the blog to give it some variety. I sure will give it try.
darrylhudson at 18:08 17 Jun 2011
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Thanks Mark,

I really look forward to your post here at Affilorama and thank you again for this one, because I'll add this as well to my list of resources that I have already.

I would like to share with everyone also some of my resources that I use to build my affiliate & Clients site with, I hope that member here will find these resources useful too.

Color Picker
http://www.colorpicker.com

Thumboo Thumbnail Generator
http://www.thumboo.com

What’s Its Color?
http://whatsitscolor.com

Color Hunter
http://www.colorhunter.com

Color Palette Generator
http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/

Color Scheme Designer
http://colorschemedesigner.com

Great Post Mark Keep Us Informed

Best Regards,

Darryl H.
Hamant Keval at 18:38 17 Jun 2011
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Hi Mark

That is a great and very useful tool.

I use colour picker that I have on my desk top but this one looks very good

Thanks

Rich Kent at 19:47 17 Jun 2011
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Yep, I've been using Color Scheme Designer for a long time. It's a great tool for coming up with website colors.

What's especially good about CSD is that you can select complimentary colors and even tetrad and so on - which is great for finding font colors that stand out with your theme colors. Great tool!
Diane at 21:11 17 Jun 2011
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Hi Mark

Thanks for these ideas and links. It's good to have some easy references, as colour combinations on websites can certainly encourage you to keep reading, or make you want to leave post haste. Keep up the great work.

Linda at 21:18 17 Jun 2011
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Thank you Mark. I haven't been using anything like this when I design my sites. Interesting!
LyndaJ at 22:14 17 Jun 2011
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This is a very handy little tool to have! Good timing too. Just yesterday I had a bit of difficulty explaining to someone the colour scheme I wanted for my next site. This will make it much easier. Thank you!
Mary at 22:42 17 Jun 2011
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I have been using this for years. It is a great tool.

And for those who want to build more flexibility, check out Adobe's Kuler. http://kuler.adobe.com/ it is also free
norma at 23:22 17 Jun 2011
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Hi Mark, hi everyone,

Thanks for the great post, i'm a newbie and i'm about to start downloading and working on my first affilojetpack.

I would like to know how to use and incorporate the color scheme designer tool when creating my website?

Thanks*

Best Regards

norma at 23:23 17 Jun 2011
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Hi Mark, hi everyone,

Thanks for the great post, i'm a newbie and i'm about to start downloading and working on my first affilojetpack.

I would like to know how to use and incorporate the color scheme designer tool when creating my website?

Thanks*

Best Regards

Andy Hewing at 11:17 18 Jun 2011
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What a great site, so many good features, keep them coming and thanks!
norm crenshaw at 19:28 18 Jun 2011
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Mark! What an awesome tool! Thanks for telling us about it, I'll be using it a LOT!
Paul at 20:07 18 Jun 2011
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Thanks Again Mark,

Hope is all well over there since the hurricane.

Cheers

Paul
web tasarım at 14:49 19 Jun 2011
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thanks for the useful post, this color picker very easy to use
kmmr77 at 16:30 19 Jun 2011
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thanks for the post this is a great tools for Wordpress Blog
joolsstone at 23:58 22 Jun 2011
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Fantastic, I never knew such things existed, as someone who constantly agonises over theme design options it's much appreciated, thanks!
Riverjumping at 11:03 25 Jun 2011
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Really nice tool. I like the way it lets you adjust for more muted colors, light intensity, etc. It makes good use of the color wheel. Colorpic is a tool that I use frequently. When you find a colors you want to use, you can create a palette in it. It stores them handily. http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/

Mike at 16:10 25 Jun 2011
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Thanks - Thats a cool tool.

I have been looking for something like this
ppfletch at 12:33 17 Jul 2011
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Thanks Mark

Made a much better colour scheme with this tool

Cheers

Paul
Mado at 23:46 25 Aug 2011
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Thank you Mark I like colours thank you for this tool
classymassy78 at 21:01 28 Aug 2011
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I’m really loving the contents of your blog. Hopefully you keep posting regularly. Thanks.
Patricia, promotional products at 7:40 9 Sep 2011
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Mark,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the color scheme. And the sample above is my favorite color. Nice post!

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