If I haven’t mentioned it before I really like the new design I did for Chrispian.com. It’s not fancy, it’s not going to win any design awards but it I like it. It’s wider, cleaner and has more room for me to do the kinds of things I want to do. It’s not Bulletproof yet and I still need to streamline the CSS / WordPress theme but it’s a big step in the right direction. I designed it with the idea that I could use it for my other sites as well and it lends itself to different colors and other bits that’ll make it look different despite being pretty much the same. So I decided to give Twitter Hacks a shot using the new design and overall I’m pretty pleased with it. Now to figure out what to do next!

Technorati Tags: Twitter Hacks, WordPress, Redesign

When I set out to re-launch this site I was stuck for color ideas. Some people have a natural eye for color. Not me. I struggle with it. More often than note I think women have a better eye for color than guys. We tend to think five shades of blue is a color pallet. There are exceptions, of course. There are plenty of talented male web developers and artists of every kind who have no trouble finding the perfect color pallet. But if your like me you might find yourself needing inspiration.

Here are my 7 Sources for Creative Color Ideas

• Magazines - Look at the layouts and design of popular magazines. Let other designers do all the hard work!
• CSS Galleries – I’m sure you’ve seen these, but check them out with an eye for color ideas: CSS Vault, Stylegala, CSS Zen Garden, CSS Drive, CSS Elite, CSS Beauty and many more.
• Fashion – Color and texture are these peoples lives. Learn from them.
• Nature – No one does it better. Go out and take a look around. Trust me, they always match.
• Art – Check out Art.com, Art.org, Deviant Art or Digital Art. Aside from wasting hours, days and weeks browsing all the incredible images, if you can peel yourself away you’ll probably find yourself very inspired.
• Photographs – Photographs have a way of capturing color pallets, sometimes without even knowing it. This may go back to the whole nature thing, but photographs have a way of giving you ideas for color that you might not have expect. Keep that in mind and go browse Flickr. Find some pictures and use This tool to generate a color pallet for you.
• Paint Samples & Home Decoration – best kept secret in color pallets. Go to your local hardware store and stock up on samples. I’ve got a box of them sitting next to my desk. Don’t think about it, just go do it.

One of my favorite places to check out is Color Lovers, a cool web site with a web 2.0 kind of vibe that has plenty of color ideas and pallets that you can browse. Do a quick search on Google for color pallets and you’ll find more resources than you’ll know what to do with.

Even with all that help I went with a monochrome gray/white/black pallet. I plan on adding a pinch of color in the mix later, just haven’t decided which ones yet.

Do you have any great color tips? Leave them in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Web Design, Color Pallets, Color Ideas, Colors