Here are three of my favourite creative websites and resources.
This time featuring: colours, branding, and drums!
Branding Style Guides
The Branding Guidelines Archive
brandingstyleguides.com
Homepage ©Branding Style Guides
To kick this blog series off, we have a corker of a resource for graphic designers – an ever-growing archive of branding guidelines from famous businesses and institutions from around the world.
Just one of many available guideline documents! ©Branding Style Guides
These documents are where companies put their best graphical foot forward and so it’s really inspiring to be able to browse through them and see the story behind visual brands. There are even examples going back to the 1960s… You could genuinely spend hours here, so be careful!
Coolors
The super fast colour palette generator!
coolors.co
The Generator ©coolors.co / Fabrizio Bianchi
I have mentioned coolors in a previous post, but there are a few extra functions to this great website that I should point out.
First and foremost it’s a colour palette generator – simply press the space bar and a new palette of compatible colours will appear.
Usually you would have at least one colour already in mind for your work, so just click on one of the hex codes and enter it. Hovering over your new colour will reveal a few options – you will want to click the padlock button to lock it. Now, when you press the space bar, the other four colours will change to form a palette that ‘works’ with your base colour. Keep hitting space until something clicks with you. Pro tip: you can press the left arrow key to go back, if you missed a good one!
The Palette Visualiser ©coolors.co / Fabrizio Bianchi
There’s an option at the top of the screen where you can visualise your palette. This function applies your colours to various graphical formats, allowing you to see how the colours actually work together in practice.
The Image Picker ©coolors.co / Fabrizio Bianchi
Another feature that is well worth mentioning is the Image Picker – which allows you to extract colours from a photograph, and so quickly build a harmonious palette from that base file.
The Named Colour List ©coolors.co / Fabrizio Bianchi
There is a handy library of over 500 named colours — finally: you can tell your Crimson from your Vermilion! And also a list of ready-made gradients, where you can even copy the CSS code to apply to your website.
The Gradient List ©coolors.co / Fabrizio Bianchi
I’m really only scratching the surface of the things this site can do for you; honestly, this is a wonderful resource.
Tenori-Off
A machine learning powered drum machine
tenori-off.glitch.me
A screenshot of the Tenori-Off sequencer ©Meownica Studio
I’m probably one of the least musically able people i’ll ever know… but the creation of music can certainly be made to be accessible and fun — just like with this Javascript music sequencer created by Moewnica Studio. Simply click on the squares of the grid interface to plot your synths and/or drums, and hit that Play! button.
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Header Image: by fidaolga on Adobe Stock.
