There’s something about a colour palette which brings me pure joy. My ‘colour palette’ Pinterest board is my favourite to scroll through and to add to because colour is so evocative; the vibe, the possibility, the inspiration…
It’s something that’s spanned my life, this love of colour. I’d collect paint charts as a kid, create mood boards from the Argos Catalogue and sort my large collection of Crayola Crayons into colour order in the fancy schmancy crayon holder I had. Since then, I’ve pulled together colour palettes for book covers, products, mood boards for DIY and ‘just for fun’ and I want to show you how you can do so too.
Creating Your Own Colour Palettes
The colour palettes above are all from my own camera reel. As you can see, I have used them as a focal point to create simple colour palettes. You could use photos this way as inspiration for branding, for paintings, for room decor, for wedding themes, for textile design, and so, so, so much more.
- Your first step will be to find your source photos. I’ve used my own but you could use royalty-free photos from websites like Canva, Unsplash, and Pexels.
- You’ll then upload them, one at a time, to Canva’s Color Palette Generator.
The numbers and letters which follow the # symbol are known as a Hex Code – the unique identifier of that particular tone. You can use this Hex Code in Canva when designing graphics. You just click on the text / area you want to change and then click on the small colour cube above the design. Type your Hex Code into the search box which appears to the left and your design will change accordingly.
You can see that the colour “Mariner” from the colour palette generator has a Hex Code of #337EC5
This is the code I popped into the search box in Canva to amend the colour in the image you can see below.
If you want to create pretty colour palette graphics like I did, all you need to do is open Canva and choose ‘Instagram Post (Square)’ – create blank.
Make sure you’re in the ‘design’ tab to the left and then type ‘colour palettes’ or ‘color palettes’ into the search bar and press ENTER.
This will generate lots of templates that you can use and customise.
You can download these to print or share them with your friends, family or colleagues. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments and I’ll be happy to help.
