Color is one of the most important design element and every seasons, companies pay a huge amount of money try to invent new color or to stay with the color trend. And in this post, we explore some more about color, like generators, or color research tool.

Color Wheel

To understand color, you need to under the color wheel first

In the color wheel, we have 2 formula formed:

Analogous colors – any three colors which are side by side on a 12 part color wheel, such as yellow-green, yellow, and yellow-orange. Usually one of the three colors predominates.

Complementary colors – any two colors which are directly opposite each other, such as red and green and red-purple and yellow-green. In the illustration above, there are several variations of yellow-green in the leaves and several variations of red-purple in the orchid. These opposing colors create maximum contrast and maximum stability.

Color Mode (Spot color, RGB, CMYK……)

This is one of the technical terms that many fashion designers get confused.

For simplification, we can classify the color into 2 categories: Screen and Pigment

For screen, a very wide range of color can be displayed

• RGB
• CMYK(generated, not 100% exactly with the real pigment)
• Spot Color(generated, not 100% exactly with the real pigment)
• HSV
• Lab Color

Still, the screen can’t be display some kind of color, like florescence and luminous color

For pigment, we have

• Spot color, which is formed by mixing different chemical (PANTONE or some other color palette)
• CMYK, very common in normal color-printed, mixing Cyan, magenta, yellow and black by dots to form different color

So, we normally use RGB color mode when displaying on the screen, and CYMK, spot color for printout, and spot color for textile.

Color Trend Posts [Updated 15/02/10]

Fashiontribes

Fashion Trendsetter

Color Sizzle

Fashionising

SICO

Color Research

Idee

Select a color, and it can find the respective photo for you.

Color Generator

4096 Color Wheel

Color Explorer

Color Hunter

Big Huge Labs: Color Palette Generator

Color Blender

Color Scheme Designer

DeGraeve

Color Wizard

Color Jack

ColorMunki

Colorlovers

ColoRotate

kuler

Stripe Generator

Aviary

COPASO

If you have any more color resources, please let me know.

FASHIONARY is an on going project, so I am always looking for feedback. And I received a number of requests for modifying the current technical templates. Thanks a lot! Today I update it and you can download here.

The Changes

Now, we can use the templates more easily for both sides.

Here is an exmaple, I spent 10 mins for a denim jacket.

If you have any other feedback, please don’t be hesitate to tell me.

Regards,

Penter

Denim is one of the oldest fabric, but still, it is one of the most fashionable and widely used fabric. And as the full jeans trend is going wildly this season, we can have a deeper look at the finishing details of your jeans. And somehow, denim has the most sophisticated finishing. Some of the techniques found below can be done by yourself, like bleaching, washing and ripping.

Acid Washing

Patented in 1986, this wash uses pumice stones soaked in bleach to create deep contrast within the coloring of the denim jeans.

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A while ago, when I walked along some vintage store in Manchester, I found some vintage sewing pattern. They were mainly from the 60’s and 70’s. If sewing is the language of fashion, the pattern should be the books. It recorded different style according to time. Below, here are some free pattern resources you can find online:

BurdaStyle

Thanks smiffy for the update (20/12/09)

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