I love seeing how companies advertise their paint hues. In addition to traditional (and still awesome) paint chip cards, there are so many creative directions to go in. Simple yet inspiring, these photographs from Serena and Lily showcase the available paint colours with plenty of glossy dimension and clean little captions. Hoping one of these days, I can get my hands on a paint company colour project!

(photographs via serena and lily summer 2011 catalog which was spotted on the goods design)

“Where Does Red Begin and Where Does it End” by artist Spencer Finch is an intriguing piece of watercolour art I happened to come across. It is “a study of the margins of the color red documenting its gradual shift between orange and violet.” Such an intriguing concept of wondering where the boundaries of colour are. Many times, one person’s ‘red’ is another person’s ‘orange’. When you stare at this piece, where does the red begin and end for you?

Yet another clever idea dreamed up by Martha Stewart Living. After finishing a paint job in your home, take the wooden stirrer used to mix the paint, leave it to dry and then write the paint name and number on the end. Bundle the sticks with some twine and there you have it – your home’s palette! While definitely functional for future trips to the paint store, I also love this idea from a more design perspective. It creates a personal palette of your home or space – perfect for hanging on a wall as art or keeping as a reminder of your interior design prowess and home memories should you move. I would love to see these bundles of swatches over a lifetime. Imagine the colours selections of different eras! Oh Martha, you really do think of “good things“.

(image via martha stewart living, may 2011)

As a colour-obsessed person, I am enamoured with all things Pantone. As the world leader in colour, I imagine visiting the Pantone headquarters would be my version of going to Graceland? Pantone added 175 new colours to Fashion + Home system today bringing the total number of available shades for fabric and interior goods to 2,100. It’s also the first time new hues have been added since 2003. On a project not so long ago, I was so eager for more blue Pantone fabric options, I was ready to try mixing dyes myself! Overall, it is a huge boost for anyone trying to translate their vision to product. I love this ‘behind-the-scenes’ video by Pantone that shows the process behind creating this complex system and features colour experts like designer Jonathan Adler and Kate Spade creative director Deborah Lloyd. I love the great quotes shared about colour and its importance in design, products and creating a happy life overall.

Now that plenty of colour is approaching its four month anniversary (yes, I’m going to celebrate each month!), I plan on launching more unique features. I am always going to showcase the many colour-loving designers, projects and items that inspire me but I’m also looking forward to having a couple more custom features to play with. I thought I would give a sneak peak of a new feature I am experimenting with – Assorted Colour. There are many blogs featuring colour palettes extracted from photographs which I love and am definitely inspired by. When I started this blog, I thought about going down a similar road but then I considered how I personally see colour palettes. A yellow car passing a red street pole and blue umbrella, a magenta paper clip next to a piece of turquoise twine and scrap of lavender felt – I realized that my inspiration for colour palettes came more from objects and the 3D world rather than just photographs. So, I decided to turn this realization into a new feature. I am very excited to experiment with objects and themes to create these Assorted Colour palettes from collections of colourful treasures. (p.s. forgive the quick shots but I was eager to play with this idea yesterday!)

(items in kitchen palette: mukitchen bamboo dishcloth in pacific, black tea, chive blossoms, le creuset mini cocotte in caribbean blue, kitchen craft colourworks spoon spatula in pink, kidney beans & tumeric)

(items in workshop palette: rubbermaid duster, screws, blue pool tile, duck brand duct tape in blue, vintage tinner’s snips, vintage mini robertson screwdriver, powdered chalk and green painter’s tape)

(photographs by plenty of colour)

It’s always nice to see a car advertisement that is a bit different from the usual shiny car/people enjoying said car/masculine surroundings combination. Volkswagon seems to be the king of going a unique direction but this Land Rover piece really caught my eye. The ad captures Land Rover’s off roading brand essence by showcasing all of the colours you will see when exploring the world in your new car and where these colours will appear longitude and latitude-wise. I love the global colour names including Mont Blanc Blizzard, Mauna Loa Lava and La Palma Banana. Anyone fancy going on a global colour scavenger hunt?

(to see a bigger version of the ad, click on the image)
(image via ads of the world)

Created by designer Derek Chan, Front Page Fingerprint is a visualization of the formal elements of the New York Times front page such as white space, headline size/length, body copy, imagery and overall colour palette. Each column is one day of February 2011 newspapers. A fascinating study of colour and design elements. I really want to view the colour palette element close up to see what trends emerge! From these images, you can see the more colourful papers are definitely weekend editions. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see this idea applied to a years worth of papers or even notable periods of history?

(images via uw design)

I would love to go to lunch with artist Arthur Buxton as he looks at colour in a truly fascinating way (you may remember my post about his Van Gogh pie graphs.) His newest piece focuses on British Vogue magazine covers from 2001 to 2011. In reverse chronological order, from left to right, each block is a separate cover. Within each block, the strips of color that vary in width, represent the five most common colors proportionally found within that specific issue. The larger bands represent the years, starting in May and moving backwards. (If you’re like me, you will need to read those instructions a couple of times!) While there is the expected influence of skintones, it is interesting to see how similar the colours stay across soft tones, pinks and some fall hues. Even though a variety of colours became popular in each of those years, the covers don’t really deviate from a feminine palette. Other than two issues of blue, there is very little from the yellow, green, blue or purple colour families. I would love to see Arthur use this method in different eras. I imagine the 1960′s are full of vibrant powdery hues, the 1970′s are a blend of warm tones and the 1980′s are bursting with colour and neon. A really fascinating commentary on what colours are used to sell magazines.

If you have ever wanted to dress like a colour swatch, these ombre tights from kron by kronkron are perfect for you! I am dazzled by how perfectly the colours blend from hue to hue. (available at kronkron and the olive shoppe)

(via modish)

I love Sydney Albertini’s Abstract Collection. The organic, almost watercolour shapes are gorgeous works of ceramic art. From plates to bowls to cake stands and with dozens of hue options, there are endless colour combinations possible to insure your dining pieces are truly custom! I can only imagine the beautiful results when the colours of your dinner mix with these vibrant ceramic hues. (Also, after visiting Sydney’s website, I fell in love with her colour swatches! Only a few of the many hues are shown above.)

(photo at top by liam goodman; other images via sydney albertini)

I find it almost impossible to resist creative office supplies so if I spot these colourful Pie Graph Post-It Notes by Millimeter Milligram in a Vancouver store, they are definitely coming home with me! I love how there are an assortment of graph styles so you can pick the right pie percentages to represent your work tasks, your meals or your daily priorities. I can’t be sure of their organizational effectiveness but the colours can only make your desk a happier place…

I am fascinated by this re-imagining of a Louis XVI period console by Australian designer Adam Goodrum. Rather than classic mahogany and traditional details, Goodrum used lacquered steel rods in different colours as table legs and allowed them to pop through the sleek white console top. The resulting dots are meant to reflect a carousel of childhood but I can’t help thinking of a whimsical colour wheel. A fantastic modern interpretation that perfectly marries sleek with playful design. I am in love with those table legs and resulting colour dot details!

(thanks mélanie for the inspiration!)

(images via design milk)

New York-based artist Tattfoo Tan created the Nature Matching System, a Pantone-like set of colours that highlight the hues that should be part of your daily nutrition. Extracting the colours of 88 fruits and vegetables, Tattfoo has applied his healthy food swatches to placemats, colouring books and public art pieces. The images above are of a striking mural Tattfoo created in DUMBO, Brooklyn in 2008. I love that Tattfoo’s swatches not only create an attractive colour scheme but bring attention to healthy food choices. For the Brooklyn mural, Tattfoo had children paint each square of colour which undoubtedly sparked fruit and vegetable interest. There are plans to create another mural on the grounds of a Brooklyn school – a brilliant idea and foil to the endless junk food advertisements that children see. The intense colours of fruits and vegetables highlight their naturally occuring phytochemicals and valuable nutrients and I love that Tattfoo’s swatches not only create an attractive palette but inspire healthy, colourful eating. As Tattfoo says, “it’s the idea that colour plays such an important role in nutrition.” I say we throw out the food pyramid and just eat according to colour palette!

(thanks Elisabeth for the inspiration!)

(images via good)

I am a big fan of Canadian designer Avril Loreti and her home decor and accessory creations. From moustache handkerchiefs to lobster bibs, I just love that her pieces always combine true design talent with clever ideas and wit. On one of my many visits to her Etsy page, I discovered Avril’s new product – Paint Chip Placemats. Designed to look like one my favourite items, the placemats are available in six colour ranges, are a linen/cotton blend and feature fun colour names in French and English. Yet another fantastic design from Avril that would make the perfect gift for any colour lover. I also think they would make a perfect housewarming gift as paint colours are an inevitable dinner conversation topic!

Raging Bull (1980)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Bambi (1942)

The Matrix (1999)

Black Swan (2010)

The King’s Speech (2010)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Jaws (1975)

Many films have a specific colour palette that creates a mood, highlights change in time or viewpoint and overall, creates a creative vision for how the story plays out. My new fascination is a blog called movie barcode that takes every frame of a film, compresses it into a sliver of colour and puts them next to each other. The result? A movie barcode. It is quite incredible how these barcodes capture the colours that dominate a film. From the examples above you can see the gritty brown of Pulp Fiction, the bright colours of animated films Alice in Wonderland and Bambi, the blue hues of ocean-focused Jaws, the dominating green of The Matrix and the teal opulence of The King’s Speech. It is amazing that one can follow the plot through the shifts in colour. I can’t wait to see what film movie barcode captures next!

(via flowing data)

I am always intrigued by Pantone’s Colour of the Year selections. They are almost always great indicators of colour trends ahead. Pantone’s ‘Blue Iris’ in 2008 was an insanely popular colour. I remember sitting in a meeting with seven other people wearing that exact hue! It wasn’t until I saw this image of the last 10 years worth of colour choices together that I realized how many have been similar. The shades selected for 2003, 2005 and 2010 are very alike but understandably so considering the popularity of turquoise-based colours. Pantone’s Colour of 2011, Honeysuckle, is a major departure from what has been selected in the past. It is a bold choice given some people’s automatic feelings about pink-based colours. However it is undeniably captivating and uplifting and I really love its tropical warmth. Hopefully Pantone keeps up the unique, inspiring and outside the box colour selections! (p.s. love this chart made by Pantone. It is interesting to read a little bit about the thoughts behind each choice.)