iPhone Photography: crayfish color palette

This colour palette based on a photo I snapped at our annual crayfish party this weekend. Late summer brings out fiery reds, hot oranges and darker blue skies. Colour is one of the things that inspire me deeply. Colour sensations can light me up, illuminate me with joy.

Six links for colour inspiration

• Want to make your own colour palette? Jewelry designer Brandi has made an excellent tutorial for how to make a color palette, and is hosting a Color Palette Blog Walk where you can share your color palettes.
• In The Mod. Color Analytics: A Study of Color Palettes. Explores the color palettes and hidden relationships of (in)famous paintings.
• Tips for choosing color combinations for your palette. By illustrator Veerle Pieters.
• Color + Design Blog by COLOURlovers. Lots of colour ideas and thoughts here! Don’t miss Color Inspiration from the Masters of Painting.
• kris’s color stripes. Kristina shares her striped palettes to celebrate her biggest passion of all – color.
• Colorstrology. Find out what your birthday colour is. A fun Pantone production. My birthday colour is a shade of purple (no surprise)! What’s yours?

Tags: color, color story, color swatch, colour, how-to, inspiration, palette, tutorials

Icon design process. From sketch to basic shapes

When I’m happy with the sketches for the icons, I launch Adobe Illustrator and start blocking out the icons, drawing simple, clean vector shapes using my pen tablet. I’m designing the Collection of Process Icons in the same style that was established for the first three collections of desktop icons. In this unique design project, everything from the icon concept to the simple and elegant style is based on feedback from you. The look and feel for Process Icons uses the same set of perspectives with simple, uncluttered shapes that are easy to distinguish and find on your desktop. The style is based around a rich colour palette and elegant, natural textures.

Icon design process. Adding details, colour, shading and light

Once I’ve blocked in the basic shapes, I start adding details and colours, next shading and last highlights. In this example with the alarm clock you’ll notice the same palette of reds as in the icon with the Cookery Book, the same greys as in the Gear icon and the same soft cream as in the Shoebox icon. Using the same style consistently, ensures that all the icons fit together and that you can mix and match the different collections to suit your needs.

And in case you were wondering about the dotted lines across these images, yes they are the watermarks I designed for these icon previews to at least make it more difficult for people who want to steal images. [To be continued... ]

Did you miss the other parts of this series?

• Part One: Designing the Collection of Process Icons: Sketches
• Part Two: Designing the Collection of Process Icons: A Vintage Touch
• Part Three: Designing the Collection of Process Icons: Indicating Time

Tags: colour, creative process, design, focus, getting organized, ink, organized, Process Icons, productivity, sketch, vectors

I spend a lot of time in in a digital environment, creating and designing using my computer as a tool, and so it becomes an extremely important space that I try to make both functional and beautiful so that it supports my creativity. Today I’d like to share two tools that I’ve found boost creativity as well as One Small Change for a greener digital life.

Concentrate

Concentrate

Concentrate is a simple and intuitive application that helps you eliminate distractions so that you can focus.

Concentrate lets you create Activities, which are groups of actions that help you focus on a task. For example, you may want to create an Art activity that quits social networks, launches your favourite software for creating art and changes your desktop to an image that makes you feel creative. If you like you can set a time for the activity.

Activities in Concentrate

Here you can see the different activities I’ve created with Concentrate.

There are activities for blogging, writing, art, economy, general focus, but also an activity that turns on social networks and my RSS-feed.

For a visually oriented person it’s wonderful to automatically switch desktop wallpaper to indicate that you’re moving into a different space. I love how it makes me feel like there are several spaces in the same digital environment, and as though I’m moving from one space to another when I switch between activities.

Below you can see my desktop dressed up with its regular wallpaper as well as the solid black I like to use when I focus on art and design.

This is software for the Mac. There’s a free demo of Concentrate and the application sells for $29 with a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied.

Desktop for play and desktop for focus.

ColorSchemer Studio 2

ColorSchemer Studio 2

When you create art using digital tools, you use the colour wheel with its endless possibilities for selecting colours. I like to limit my palette when I start working on a piece and pick a group of colours as a starting-point. This is where ColorSchemer Studio 2 enters the scene.

ColorSchemer Studio 2 is a professional colour-matching application that helps you build beautiful colour schemes with speed and ease. It can help you identify colour harmonies, create unique palettes based on photos or images, find related colours, mix colours to create a gradient blend and work with RGB and CMYK colours in a colour-managed environment. But it doesn’t stop there.

With ColorSchemer Studio 2 you can preview colours on a variety of layouts, view colours through colourblind eyes and analyze contrast, readability, and accessibility!

This is an incredible tool for handling colour, again this is software for the Mac there is both a version for the Mac and for Windows and although the price-tag might be steep for a hobby I think it’s well worth it for professional art and design work. ColorSchemer Studio 2 costs $49.99 and there’s a free trial available.

One Small Change

Lastly, in February I’ll be making One Small Change to make my digital life more sustainable. I’ve already got my laptop set to be optimised for high energy savings, but I tend to leave it on and charging over night, so I can just flip the lid open in the morning and read my e-mail over my morning coffee. Of course it’s ridiculous to leave it on charging at night! So, no more of that.

Seashell, stones and a plug

Tags: art, colour, creativity, design, ease, eco, focus, green living, inspiration, Mac, overwhelm, reinventing digital life, review, simplicity, software, sustainable, Windows

iPhone photography: Firefly lights and a sunset view from the studio.

In the winter, the sunset begins around three o’clock in the afternoon, and then it goes on for an hour. I often think, these sunsets are the reward for putting up with the dark and short Scandinavian winter days. Photos rarely capture these sunsets and although I’m often tempted to paint them, the paintings would probably be considered garish, cheap, unrealistic and even cheesy!

Today we’re closing the studio for the winter holidays. I’m busy finishing my last projects before the break and preparing a holiday e-mail with limited edition desktop goodies exclusively for members of Club Marmalade Moon. I expect to keep on blogging throughout the holidays. We’ll open the studio on the 8th of January and look forward to starting the new decade in a refreshed and inspiring environment.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads my blog, my window from my studio and to the world. Your comments and emails have been so encouraging, appreciative, inspiring and supportive. I wish you all the very best for the holiday season and for 2010!

iPhone photography: colour samples for paint

Tags: blogging, colour, iPhoneography, studio, sunset, winter

iPhone photography: Yellow and orange leaves.

Returning from the café balancing feta cheese sandwiches and coffee for lunch, I had to stop and dig out my camera when I saw this hedge.

Tags: colour, Creative Minutes, iPhoneography, leaves, yellow