Choosing a Color Palette? It’s For the Birds (Literally!)

Color is a significant part of any website; even black and white are color choices that communicate a lot about your personality and brand. And there’s endless possibility, with infinite options for tone and hue. How do you choose a color, let alone an entire color palette?

Lucky for you, you have 24-7 access to a free color library with thousands of palettes for any mood or style. It’s called nature, and all you have to do to find it is look out the window — or at these excellent nature photographers.

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Beyond black and white

Basic black and white will always make for a clean website, but there can be a lot more to monochrome and minimalism. At Explorers, photographer Christopher Michael captures some penguins who have a lot to teach us about the power of adding a pop of color…

Want to identify the exact color in a photo and get the color code you’ll need to apply it on your website? There are lots of free tools available.

… while Shoot From the Trip’s Dylan Jones shares a shot from the Dolomite Mountains showing us that a monochrome palette can have a lot more depth than we might think.

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High contrast!

Sharply contrasting colors add power and dynamism to a website. These Northern Gannetts soaring over a turbulent sea, captured by Bob Montgomerie at the American Ornithological Society, are a study in creamy whites juxtaposed with dusky purples…

… and Chris Spiker’s watercolor of a trio of Rainbow Bee Eaters shows us that nature has something for the most bold and brash among us as well.

Ready to explore color in more depth? Automattic designer Kjell Reigstad has a great overview of the principles of color harmony, and over at wordpress.com/go you’ll find advice on everything from choosing the best color scheme for your brand to understanding color systems like RGB and CYMK.

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Gentler gradients

Nature isn’t just birds; if fauna brings us bold and bright, flora teaches us that color can be softer, too, both in the shades themselves and in how they relate. Anita of Anita’s Images shares photos of some of the unique plants that surround her in Malta, with purples and greens flowing into and out of one another…

… and Celia of the eponymous Celia in Tokyo brings us cherry blossoms that teach us how very different colors can harmonize if they’re all of a similar softness …

… while in England, Pete Hillman’s macro photos of moss give us a palette that’s warmly cheerful.

For more color inspiration, look through the Nature or Photography topics and take a walk through the natural world from the comfort of your computer.

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