Today, in an effort to spread awareness and a better understanding of COLOURlovers, including practical ways to apply the tools and community knowledge on the site, we're highlighting the COLOURlovers group t3achers and the Forum Topic: Using COLOURLovers in the Classroom, where one member of this group, speakin_colors, shared her blog post (reposted below) with some ways she engages her students using COLOURlovers. Her ideas are shared by some like Klip who said, "I use COLOURlovers in my teaching all the time - mostly to get my (university aged new media design) students sensitised to colour combinations. Seeing how seriously many of the users of this forum take colours and colour combinations is usually a surprise to my students, and helps them to get used to the idea of spending time just playing with colour." While others suggested that it could be used for more technical training, that COLOURlovers  "could be useful for introducing them (to) RGB/HSV color schemes."

How to Use Colors & Palettes from COLOURlovers

Using Patterns in the Classroom

Students can be given patterns to colour. By teaching students the meaning of colours and how to use colour not at random but creatively, patterns can acquire powerful meaningful connotations.

This is a Guest post by illustrator and web designer Gerren Rabideau. You can see the original post here, or check out the rest of his work over at Gerren Design.

Once upon a time I was building a website and one of the colors I had picked out just wasn't quite right. I kept having to pop in and out of photoshop in order to tweak the color I was using. I didn't understand the Hex code enough to adjust it on the fly. After about an hour of tediously going back and forth with photoshop I gave up and started scouring the internet for a method of using hex code without another visual tools.

Like most people I discovered multiple sites that explain how HTML uses hexadecimal notation (xxxxxx) to define color. Hex code uses base-16 math to write a shorthand version of the binary code that is used to represent each of the different colors in the RGB color set. For instance, #f9f9f9 would be translated into RGB as 249,249,249 and then into binary as 111110011111100111111001. If that was too confusing, just think of #f9f9f9 as "off-white".

This article isn't really about explaining how the hexadecimal color system works. You can find plenty of websites out there that can explain that far better than I can. This article is about developing a method of thinking about hex code that will allow you to read and manipulate it without having to pop into photoshop in order to see the color itself. I've been calling this method "grey 88".

Before I get into that though, lets talk about color sets for a minute...

I come from a fine artist's background and learned about color by applying it to paint. I had my crayon set and yellow plus blue made green. This is because painting is a subtractive color set based on pigments. The chemicals used in creating the paint would react with each other when mixed and create green. You start with a white canvas and add colors until you get black. CMYK works in the same way. Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow are pigments that are mixed to create darker colors (black is also used, but only to reduce the need of having to mix CMY all of the time).

CMYK (subtractive color) pigment based

By default, photoshop, your computer monitor, and HTML files use RGB. RGB is an additive color set that is based on mixing light instead of pigments. Your monitor starts with black and adds different spectrums of light until you get white. In RGB the three primary colors are Red, Green, and Blue.

RGB (additive color) light based

Because RGB is based on light it has a much wider gamut of colors than pigment based color sets. In fact, all of the colors in CMYK are also in RGB (the reverse is not true). This means that Hex is unique in the sense that it is really has both RGB and CMYK.

With a little help from the Phrontistery and a colors study series by CLmember Miaki, we've put together a guide to lesser-known color vocabulary.

	black; dark; of a black colour in heraldry
	orange-yellow
	grey-green colour
	bloody; of, like or pertaining to blood; blood-red
	deep pure blue

Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films. Originally, pre-recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope, although this device has been replaced by computers and software like Adobe After Effects.

History

The technique was invented by Max Fleischer, who used it in his series Out of the Inkwell starting around 1915, with his brother Dave Fleischer dressed in a clown outfit as the live-film reference for the character Koko the Clown. Max patented the method in 1917.

Fleischer used rotoscope in a number of his later cartoons as well, most notably the Cab Calloway dance routines in three Betty Boop cartoons from the early 1930s, and the animation of Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels (1939). The Fleischer studio's most effective use of rotoscoping was in their series of action-oriented Superman cartoons, in which Superman and the other animated figures displayed very realistic movement.

With a little help from the Phrontistery and a colors study series by CLmember Miaki, we've put together a guide to lesser-known color vocabulary.

	red dye made from brazil wood; a reddish or red-orange colour
	reddish purple
	brownish crimson
	light bluish purple
	rich blue or reddish-blue colour

With a little help from the Phrontistery and a colors study series by CLmember Miaki, we've put together a guide to lesser-known color vocabulary.

	pale green colour
	of or like ivory; ivory-coloured
	reddish colour
	of the colour of rust; impregnated with iron
	dead-leaf colour; dull brown

Here's a post I put together for the folks over at TwiTip (Twitter Tips in 140 Characters or More).

While Twitter offers a few options for your background, if you're a twitter user you're probably more likely to notice and appreciate the differentiations from the standard backgrounds and color themes, and more likely to want extended that appreciation to those who follow you. Here are few suggestions you might want to consider when choosing a great color theme for your twitter profile:

Things to Consider When Choosing a Color Theme

1.) It has personality.  Let the colors speak for your personality... professional, fun, wacky, natural, etc.

Obviously, the Internet and social networks are all about transparency and truthfulness, and everyone treats them in that way... well, okay, maybe it's more about forming the person you truly see yourself as; who you truly are without outside pressures or expectations. So, choose colors that align with your own style and taste. However, while you may be really proud of the university you attended, the colors you so proudly spilled beer all over don't really speak to who you actually are, only one aspect about you.

2.) Make sure it won't cause a seizure.  Super bright and colorful makes a theme very hard to look at.

As the main purpose of Twitter is to communicate information, you'll want stay away from choosing any 'Pokémon Shock' color themes as it will only distract from the few carefully chosen characters you put in each tweet.

Read the entire post and see a small gallery of colorful profiles at TwiTip.

*Update: my apologies; header pattern by rphnick.

With a little help from the Phrontistery and a colors study series by CLmember Miaki, we've put together a guide to lesser-known color vocabulary.

	shining bronze colour
	whitish; becoming white
	like the white of an eye or an egg; white-coloured
	immortal; undying; deep purple-red colour
	the heraldic colour silver or white

This is a guest post written by speakin_colors.
A wide variety of styles fall under the term gothic. A gothic wedding dress may be similar to a Renaissance dress, or it may be closer to the dark style of the underworld look of vampires and witches. It could also include some typical Celtic elements adapted to the gothic fashion, with rich fabrics and a variety of deep colours. Other designs could include a skin-tight black or red dress with a Victorian neckline or a plunging or lock-lace bodice, a goth corset with black ribbon detail, a long flowing skirt with lace or a webbed black hose.

Click on the image for the link.

Medieval Wedding Dresses
Gothic themed dresses may also incorporate the look of the Medieval ages. Though some Medieval dresses are in white, darker colours can be chosen for a darker and more dramatic design while still retaining the rich materials and delicate trims that are often featured in Medieval dresses. Typical distinguishing characteristics of the Medieval dresses are puff-sleeves and ruffled necklines.

This is a guest post written by speakin_colors.

A Bit of History
The traditional white wedding dress symbolizes purity and chastity, two virtues a woman about to get married was supposed to have in the past. The bridal custom of wearing white started in the XVI century but it was given a boost when Queen Victoria decided to wear a white wedding gown instead of the silver dress royal brides used to wear at that time. Another monarch, Mary Queen of Scots, had worn white before when she married François II of France. However, her choice did not become popular then since white was the official colour of mourning in France at the time. It is believed Mary had chosen white since she was very fond of that colour and her white wedding dress surely must have highlighted her bright auburn hair and her hazel-brown eyes.

Prior to the Victorian era, a bride was married in any colour except black (the colour of mourning) or red (which was connected with prostitutes).

In the XIX century, women began to choose dark colours instead of light ones to get married. The choice was based purely on economic reasons since dark-coloured wedding gowns could be worn again on other social occasions.