One of the hardest challenges for design and communication within a design firm and between a firm and a client can be color scheme proposals and consistency. Adobe has launched a great website called Kuler that can simplify this process.
Color Scheme Design with Adobe Kuler allows for customizable personal creation of color schemes for a project that you can share with clients, developers, printers, and other designers to ensure everyone is on the same page color wise. And because the website is launched by Adobe the colors will correlate within Adobe products such as InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator.
In addition to creating your own color schemes, there is a library of user created schemes you can choose and draw inspiration from. You can start from one of these schemes and edit it into your own design using several methods including a color wheel selector, a value bar, direct color code input options, or automatic artistic color scheme presets.
If a client has a specific color logo that they would like you to coordinate a website around, Kuler’s artistic presets are excellent for working out what colors would be visually appealing to a consumer. Select the color in Photoshop or your program of choice using the eyedropper to get the RGB information and insert that as your base color in Kuler. The website will provide you with analogous, complementary, split complementary, and many other presets which you can use directly or edit from there.
A personal favorite way to use Kuler directly is to screen shot potential color schemes from Kuler and send them to clients for approval for designs, or even to allow design knowledgable clients to directly choose what colors they would enjoy for themselves.
Overall Kuler is a easy, clean, and valuable resource for designers to communicate color schemes more clearly.
