Paper Palettes. Inspired.

December 10, 2012
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Paper Palettes. Inspired.

There’s no such thing as a bad color, just bad color palettes.

Along with the Mixer, our team introduced four new palettes inspired by several factors — the way light hits an object, our memories, favorite places, artists, and eras; we were motivated by practicality and standards of different design disciplines. Here are the ideas and visual elements that led to the creation of each new palette.

Warm & Cool

The main theme at play in our first palette is the contrast of warm and cool, sunlight and shadow. The visual inspiration was dusk when the warmth of the day fades into the cool of night, and the sky appears to be on fire with hot orange and steel blue. We were also taken with the way sunlight hits an object and casts a cool, blue shadow.

Portrait

We wanted to offer a palette centered on picking a skin color for portrait sketches. In particular, we were inspired by painters like Rembrandt, Francisco de Goya and Gilbert Stuart, who we admire for the way they handled lighting and shadow on the color of skin. Despite it being inspired by the work of Old Masters, the palette evolved into something that felt modern. It wasn’t about choosing a range of skin tones. Instead, we created a palette inspired by the way light affects appearances.

Technical Drawing / Product Ideation

We designed this palette with product ideation sketching in mind. Looking at various sketches, we found a few commonalities that informed the colors we chose: Varying shades of steel blue helps with defining the form and shape of the object. The orange, yellow and greens are accent colors to make design details pop off the page.

Old & New

This is our most urban palette. Simultaneously retro and modern, like a vintage car or your favorite pair of jeans. Midnight blue denim paired with show-stopping red shoes.