This entry comes from a comment the lovely Lil left on last week’s post regarding my new layout.
The doodle at the bottom is so cute! Say how do you come up with these colour schemes? I’m rather taken by them. Do you have a colour lovers account? I urge you to make one
It’s actually very simple.
I go to my closet.
Essentially, everything in my closet are colours, textures and fabrics that I enjoy. And what is my website but my online “clothing,” ? So, when I’m stuck for colour ideas, I find a favourite outfit and pull the colours from that. Whenever someone asks me advice on a colour, I find an article of clothing similar to their base colour, and move from my closet, to my dresser, to my jewellery box, etc., until I find a suitable accent to suggest. If someone has absolutely no idea of what colours they want to use, I suggest their closet. It really just makes sense.
For example, my current layout was inspired by my plaid capris that my good friend Joelle bought from the thrift store in La Pocatiere, Quebec. One slightly chilly night, she let me borrow them (for I am an avid skirt-wearer, and in the summer I am virtually unaware of the location of jeans). We were in billeting, so we had no access to our house, and I ended up wearing them for most of the two weeks! Finally, Joelle told me I could keep them. They’re terribly comfortable, and I love love LOVE plaid. SO MUCH. So, last week, when I was looking for some colours for a new layout for this thing, I happened to be wearing these capris. So, I took a shot of my leg and the rest is history!
What a marvelous idea! I never really thought of going to my closet for color inspiration… Although, I guess if I did, I’d find a whole lot of black and gray (they go with EVERYTHING!) … and oddly enough, I don’t like black designs. :P
Though, now that I think about it, I do have a lot of clothing in various shades of pink, white, blue and “earthy” tones as well, and almost all of those colors have been on my website! Strange.
Hee, hee at least I am not the only one that does this, Aisling. I do tend to pick a lot of Earthy tones for most of my designs, but I do use clothing for a lot of my colors. But not my clothes. I usually wear a lot of blacks & navy blues cause those are the colors I look good in. So I scour the fashion sites, people watch and take pics of outfits that have designs or colors that I like, etc.
I love black designs & I am really good at making them, but I get so many comments wondering if I am depressed when I have a black design up. So I try to steer away from them.
Eh, like Chanel said, it doesn’t work when the majority of one’s wardrobe is black or grey!
It’s a great concept though…
I do that too! Although I don’t always implement it, because… my wardrobe is pretty bright (i.e. lots of reds), and I don’t want my website to burn someone’s eyes out :P
That’s a brilliant idea! I would’ve never thought that clothing could inspire a website design.
Hihi… I once was inspired for a layout by the stars on a shirt I was wearing. It ended up being all Wild West Texas-y
I haven’t thought of doing that before. Nice idea.
ILY for blogging about this Aisling! You don’t know what pain I’m going through just to scavenge Colour Lovers for a nice color scheme that is translatable to a layout.
I personally wouldn’t do that because, as this layout demonstrates, just taking the colours from, oh say, a pair of pants and slapping them onto a layout doesn’t work. I’m more of a fan of picking one or two colours that I really like (usually lifted from another site) and playing with them until I get a result I like.
I tend to prefer brighter, more pastel-y colors for my layouts (I like blue, green, and pink, but I wouldn’t wear just those colors in any outfit!), but it’s a nice idea.
What a creative idea! I love this, I think I’ll use it for my next layout :P
What a neat concept =)
That’s a great idea! I’ll definitely have to steal that method.
I go through colour scheme phases for my wardrobe - you’re very right in that it makes sense to clothe a website in the same way you would clothe yourself
It’s a venue I’ve been exploring at the moment since I’ve been making colour charts for my revamp. Nice plaid capris by the way, and thanks for the link!
I’ve tried using my closet before
How cool, I thought no one else would do something like that too. Although I would look at an entire outfit rather than just one article of clothing ;P
Lawl, that’s pretty creative…although if I were to pick color schemes out of my clothing then all I would have would be patterns of brown, gray, blue, white and black!
Nothing else! 
Well…unless I took colors from my undie collection. I think it’s easier (for me at least) to buy colorful underthings than regular clothes.
That’s a fabulous idea. I kinda do the same. But w/ photo’s of jewerly alot of the time, or just photo’s in general. I’ve never thought to do it w/ clothing. Excellent tip!