There are MANY a day I sit here in front of my monitor trying to pick colors for my website, for an ad, for ByteStand, for a new app, for just about everything. I ask my wife, my kids, heck I’d ask my dog if I had one. I seem to always be looking for matches, or contrasts, or I try and go for a particular mood. It’s all about color.

I’ve now come to fully depend on these two resources for all my color needs. I love them both and couldn’t make pretty things without them. Now if they just came out with something similar for my clothes closet I’d be set.

Color Scheme Designer

I love this one. If you are half way decent with Photoshop or, even better, the free alternative Gimp, you can find any color you like, sample it, and then find its compliment or contrast or multiple other alternatives for matching colors. You can adjust your color scheme and view a light page example or a dark page example of all the colors in your pick list. Better yet, you can do what I do, and that is just spin the color wheel and see what looks good. It’s super simple, but looks complex. So when someone walks by your desk, you can explain in a knowing tone how you are picking an accented analogic color scheme for your latest project. They will be impressed.

Google Material Design

This latest design project from Google blew me away. Google has put forth this totally free framework to compete with Bootstrap. It includes all sorts of design elements, including color. What is so great about this framework is that ALL the colors go together. They’ve broken down colors into various components. Primary, secondary, accent and text. A number given to each color corresponds to which category the color belongs. Then just pick what you want, and you’re done. Go further with the flat design elements from Google Material and you’ll have a killer website in no time. Below is the video from Google explaining their colors.