While I was never really talented, I loved drawing classes during school. Now, I really enjoy watching what some designers can come up with, and that’s why I stopped at color theory today. Since web development is really close to art, choosing the right color scheme for a certain site can be pretty tricky without the right tools.
Of course that having a free tool to get the job done properly is the best thing for most of you, and Color Scheme Designer is exactly that tool. After all, usability, aesthetics and graphics are three of the five crucial components of Web design, and you don’t want to take any chances, right?
Released a few months ago, the new version of Color Scheme Designer is third in the history of this Web tool, the previous ones being dated 2005 and 2002. If this last version seems too much, or simply you don’t like the interface, you can go ahead and try Color Scheme Designer 2 or the original release, maybe they can still help you.
Working with Color Scheme Designer is pretty easy: choose to work with a triad, tetrad, and so on (choices are available in the upper left of the page), then spin the color wheel until you’re happy with the result. You can preview your scheme while working on it, as well as getting access to a light web page example and a dark one, links to these pages being located at the bottom of the site, to the right.
Even more than the above, you can even simulate color vision deficiencies, as well as making Color Scheme Designer 3 a part of your own website, allowing your users to pick exactly the color scheme they want to use while browsing it. Anyway, this is a bit more complicated than just “playing” with the online Color Scheme Designer and obtaining a color scheme to use, but it’s well documented, so you shouldn’t have any problems.
At last, the cookie on top of the cake: all that comes with Color Scheme Designer is free to use, no matter if we’re talking about commercial or non-commercial usage!
Compatibility: no problems with Safari (the Windows version), but minor glitches in all other browsers I tried, including Internet Explorer and Google Chrome; I am really curious about your experience with it – be sure to drop a comment below, if you notice any problems with this tool… or even if you don’t! 😉
