Creative High-Five: Every Color Bot
Colour swatch #fa6d76
I know what you’re thinking, “Really, a bot?” but hear me out. This isn’t just a bot, it’s a feed dedicated to posting colour swatches with hex codes and it’s genius. I don’t know about other designers, but I admit that there’s only a handful of colours I use in my work: a few brights, a few muted, mostly neutrals. Even when a client has existing brand colours, I’ll try to sneak in one of my “preferred” shades because I know the flexibility of that colour and how to make it look good in a design.
While it’s great to have a set of safety colours, it also means I have trouble expanding my palate, so to speak. I get comfortable with a handful of shades and that’s when my designs start looking the same.
Enter Every Color Bot. While not every colour is appropriate for design or screen view, there’s something wonderful about an endless scroll of swatches. There's no judgement attached, no commitment to make and no stress to endure; just colours waiting for their moment to shine. As a designer, I really appreciate resources like this because it’s accessible for any stage of the design process. Sometimes, a colour that didn’t cross your mind can breathe new life into a stale design.
Good for: People who are emotionally attached to a set of colours, even if you're not in a creative field. Maybe you're looking to refresh the paint your walls, shopping for a new outfit or anything else where colour plays a big role in the decision making. Also, designers who are up to their eyeballs in the design phase and haven’t come up for air. If you’re feeling stuck on a layout, sometimes it’s a colour thing and not a layout thing.
Hard pass: You don’t care for colours outside your safety palate because you specialize in a particular aesthetic or design style. To be honest, it’s hard for me to think of reasons to pass on this because I use it so much.
Related: Yayfrens Bot
Creative High-Fives is a series discussing the things that unexpectedly spark inspiration for creativity, design thinking and productivity.