When it comes to Pantone + COLOURlovers, you could say we both love color... but I think of them more as the parents from the 50s who live long happy lives together but sleep in separate beds... as we might be more of the free-lovin hippies of the 60s... not that there is anything wrong with that. All kidding aside Pantone does a pretty crazy job of allowing people to translate colors across industries. If you want the yellow of your website, to match the yellow of your car's paint to the yellow of your favorite yellow speedos... they've created color software and specifications to make sure you always get the perfect hue.

Thanks to Tina at SwissMiss I found a wonderful photo of leaves matches to their pantone colors and sought out to find more photos of people comparing colors in their real lives to their pantone cousins.

Chris Glass is a creative guy who takes lots of fun photos... one I particularly love is one he took back in Oct. that showcases the range of colors a single tree can produce as the seasons change.

"I’m obsessing over all the maples that are turning slowly this season–their tops red, fading to green. So much that I felt compelled to collect samples from a single tree."

by chrisglass

Pantone Matching Photoset by RIVET sf

Linked from Chris' page was a Pantone Matching Photoset with lots of fun office color finds.

by mdsf_gone_wild

v3 launched with a major new section... Patterns. We knew that you loved finding great colors and arranging them in color palettes... so we guessed that you might want something to do with those palettes (Seeing as you've already created more than 3,400 different patterns in 2 days, I think we guessed right). We launched with just a couple dozen patterns to color but hope to add hundreds more over time. Create a Pattern or Browse the Patterns that have already been added.

Use Our Patterns

Desktop Wallpaper, Website Background, Virb Profile, Myspace Layout, Etc... All of our patterns can be freely downloaded or used, but a link back to COLOURlovers is always greatly appreciated and please no commercial use or selling of our patterns. Not sure if how you want to use the pattern is commercial? Let us know how you want to use it.

Share Your Patterns

If you are the creator of a seamless pattern, Let us know and we'll happily add it to the site. The patterns need to be able to tile, be 5 colors or less with no gradients and preferably in .svg format. Tell us how you want to be credited and we'll add your link.

Some Pattern Color Inspiration and Examples:

Parrotfish are probably the most colorful living things on the planet. Not only are there 90 some species of them, male and female parrotfish sport different colors and have the ability to change their coloration and patterns repeatedly throughout their lives. Females tend to feature browns, greens, silvers, and grays, while males have more vibrant colors such as pink, aqua, orange, yellow, red, and electric blue. However, in the Mediterranean, the coloration is reversed, with females sporting vivid hues and males drab ones.
 

by laszlo-photo.

Bizarre Fact: Some male parrot fish maintain harems of females. If the male dies, one of the females will change gender and color and become the dominant male.

 

by richard ling.
 
 

by edwardcallaghan73.

Parrotfish are mostly tropical fish that live in all the world’s oceans. The parrotfish family contains ten genera and about 90 species. They get their name from their powerful cutting-edged beaks they use to scrape from the surface of coral, algae, polyps, and other small plant and animal life upon which they feed.

 

by Maurice Koop.

Parrotfish sleep in pajamas. Every night they secrete mucous from an organ on their head that wraps around their bodies, making them harder for nocturnal predators to find.

 

by laszlo-photo.

Parrotfish meat isn't consumed much in the US, but is considered a delicacy in many other parts of the world. In Polynesia, it was even once considered a dish only fit for the king.

 

by alfonsator.

Parrotfish can range in size from 1 to 4 feet (30 to 120 centimeters) in length and have a lifespan of up around 7 years.

by sniffette.

by jon hanson.
 
 

Critical for the Coral Reefs

The key to saving the Caribbean's coral reefs could be the vividly colored parrotfish, according to the journal Nature. Reef ecosystems are increasingly strangled by encroaching seaweed, fertilized by agricultural runoff. However, parrotfish graze on seaweed, using parrot-like beaks. Since sea urchin numbers have dwindled in the Caribbean, parrotfish are the primary grazers. Scientists now believe that protecting the fish could help strangled reefs to recover. Parrotfish need protection because they are a sought-after delicacy in Caribbean culture and are easily caught in fish traps.

To learn more about the role of parrotfish in coral reef ecosystems, see the BBC News Report - Parrotfish to Aid Reef Repair.

by Karlplatz.
 

 

Parrotfish Color Inspiration:

 

 

 

 

Coral Reef Color Inspration:

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

More Interesting Parrotfish Info:
National Geographic Library - Parrot Fish
BBC News Report - Parrotfish to Aid Reef Repair

 

About the Guest Author, Craig Conley
Website: http://www.OneLetterWords.com
Craig is an independent scholar and author of dozens of strange and unusual books, including a unicorn field guide and a dictionary of magic words. He also loves color: Prof. Oddfellow

Hello COLOURlovers,

Well here she is... v3 in all her glory. We probably should call this 3

to emphasize that we have had little time to test the new site and trouble shoot any little hiccups... But, we're throwing a party and we couldn't do it without tons of new color love.

We'll do a proper post in the next couple days to explain and better showcase all the new things that have been added, but until then you'll have to be a curious lover and go exploring.

Wee.0 Launch Part - Live (Not Quite Live... 7pm +PST)

COLOURlovers - Weee.0 is launching Dec. 8th on the web and at our launch party in Portland, OR. Excited? Nervous? So are we! We've been adding new features to the site all year, but it is about that time where we get ready to unveil hundreds of hours of our color loving efforts with the release of a new version of the site...

Version 3.0, aka Version Weee.0 is all about evolving the fun, creative and inspiring color community experience. Will be seeing some minor updates to the entire site, continuing our efforts to create an easy and enjoyable user experience. We'll be adding a new powerful tool that we've been developing for several months that will make you pro and amateur color lovers alike, very happy... and it can even run on your desktop!

We'll also be evolving the love of color in a totally new direction for us. We know you love colors... and arranging them into 5 color palettes... now we're going to give you something creative and fun to do with those palettes.

Join Us at the Launch Party!

The world will see the new version of the site go online December 8th, and if you're in the Pacific Northwest, we'd love to have you join us at Rake Art Gallery for a party and interactive night of color love celebrating the new version and the amazing year of growth we've seen. This year our northern neighbors, Imagekind will be generously sponsoring the printing of all our color strips, palettes... and.... Well, you'll just have to be there to see what else they'll be creating for us.

The event will go from 7:00pm to 10:00pm so join us before dinner, after dinner or enjoy our tasty beverages and snacks and join us for a lite dinner. We'll have even more color choices this year for you to create your real life color palettes with, several computers to check out the new site on... and a Chinese auction for our full sized canvas art with proceeds benefiting HODR.org, a volunteer staffed disaster relief non-profit.

Beer + Wine + Snacks + Music + Color... Wee.0

(Click the image above to see more photos from our launch event last year.)

We'll be adding more details as we get closer to the date, so stay tuned.

    Event Sponsored By

Imagekind.com is one of the fastest growing online art sites. Their goal is to develop a fresh new online art experience that allows both consumers and professional artists a new outlet for sharing, creating and buying actual wall art from digital files.
 

Our friends over at Coudal Partners pointed us to a Live Layer Tennis match in progress... This one is not only colorful and fun.. the creative forces are battling with flash. All matches take place on Fridays, live at 2pm Chicago time or GMT-6, Pop over and take a peek.

Welcome to Layer Tennis’ first foray into the fourth dimension.

Considering the constraints of most modern browsers, we had to skip the third dimension (depth), so the fourth will have to do. Time has always been an essential element of the game, the competitors (and commentators) face a cruel 15-minute deadline, and — hear me when I say — those seconds tick away much faster at LT HQ than they do in your office, as you kill the waning hours of your work week.

This week, however, temporal space will actually tear through our 900x280-pixel battlefield, as renowned illustrators Trevor Van Meter and James Hutchinson face off in Adobe Flash. I pity their poor souls; if designing/illustrating/typesetting a volley isn't enough to do in a quarter-hour, they must find time to animate the volley as well. While this added challenge is likely to simplify the actual graphic content of the match (fine by me, I'm a bit of a minimalist), we're likely to see some great storytelling, as both competitors excel in that area, and each has an arsenal of ready-made characters that would make old Walt D. blush. (As I write this, I'm getting word that James, at least, is creating a new set of characters just for the match).

Thanksgiving is celebrated in November in the U.S. and in October in Canada. Thanksgiving was celebrated in the U.S. on the last Thursday in November until in 1929 with urging from the National Retail Dry Goods Association, President Franklin Roosevelt extended the Christmas shopping season by one week and moved Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November. Here are some fun facts about the holiday and some color inspiration to help get you in the turkeyloving mood.

The modern day holiday is celebrated as an occasion to give thanks for the things we have and the people we share life with. Well, Thanksgiving at the COLOURlovers house was a little smaller last year and I want to take this moment to say that I am thankful to all 38,000 of you who have become members of our growing community. Have a wonderfully color loving holiday.

Scholastic has some great information about the History of the Thanksgiving Feast and how the history has evolved since the 1621 feast the Pilgrims shared with the Wampanoag to celebrate the colony's first successful harvest.

by ExperienceLA

The black-feathered (and thin) Wild Turkeys are not same as the white-feathered (very overweight) ones that we serve at Thanksgiving and other holidays.

by Liz

45 million Turkeys are eaten each Thanksgiving. A 15lb. Turkey consists of 70% white meat and 30% dark meat. Turkeys can drown if they look up when it is raining.

Are you on that deserted highway, being chased down by Sasquatch who is driving an orange VW bug again? Dream interpretation / analysis is what people use to help them figure out the meanings of their dreams. It is an old art, going back to the ancient societies of Egypt and Greece, where divine messages were thought to reach you through your dreams. Only people with special powers were able to decipher the hidden wisdom of these messages... Now days anybody can do it... but it doesn't hurt to think you have special powers.

In more recent years the study of our dreams was taken up by major Psychologists like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These two men had differing views and exactly what the symbols in our dreams meant, but both considered there to be great meaning to be extracted from this area of our subconscious mind. First we'll look at the meaning of colors in your dreams and then provide you with some basic dream symbolisms to help you unlock just what your subconscious is trying to tell you about the orange bug owning Sasquatch who keeps visiting you.

Color Symbolism in Basic Dream Interpretation

The below color associations in dream interpretation should be thought of as loose guides. First, think about what personal color associations you might have... ie, Blue can generally symbolizes truth and wisdom... but if your high school football team wore blue jerseys and the varsity jocks stuffed you in a locker every morning... you might have a different personal reaction to the color blue.

Red	Red can symbolize passion, courage, or your emotional relationships... but it can also be the color of danger. You will need to think about what your personal associations are with red and look at the context of the rest of your dream to find out if you're seeing love or danger. Often they go hand in hand.
Orange	Orange symbolizes sociability and friendliness. This color could be showing you new interests or things that are warm and friedly towards you... or maybe your thoughtfulness towards a particular interest.

November has two modern birthstones, Yellow Topaz and Citrine. Both stones come in a variety of warm colors... yellow, orange, red, brown. The name Topaz even comes from the Sanskrit word for fire. Perhaps these warm hues are inspired by the fiery colors foliage turns before they fall for the winter months, or maybe these stones are an inspiration of the last bits of warmth before the chills of December...

Yellow Topaz is also the accepted anniversary gemstone for the 4th, 19th or 23rd year of marriage. Historically the stone was believed to be a source of strength and healing. In the Middle Ages topaz was through to cure both mental and physical ailments... and back further in Roman and Greek times it was thought to increase strength, improve eyesight and even make the wearer invisible.

Topaz is found in a variety of colors including: brown, red, orange, pink, sherry, yellow as well as colorless and is most often located in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Russia, Australia, Africa, Mexico and Pakistan.

 

For most people, color is basic element of our daily lives that we use for comfort, inspiration, practicality, etc. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, phobias and irrational fears affect approximately 10% of adults. Some of those phobias relate to colors being the most terrifying thing imaginable... for those poor people, this color loving website would probably be hell-incarnate. Here are several color phobias and some of color associations with common and strange phobias.

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Chromatophobia - The fear of colors.

 
Chromatophobia is an abnormal and persistent fear of colors. Like most fears and phobias, the fear of color is created by the subconscious mind as a protective reaction. It was likely an emotionally traumatic event in ones past that was linked to colors in general or a specific color. Because the association of colors to that traumatic event is so strong, when subjected to colors later in life the unconscious mind brings up terrible feelings. The phobia affects people in different ways, with some experiencing the suffering all the time and others just to direct stimuli.

Specific Color Phobias:

Phodophobia Fear of the Color Red			Chrysophobia Fear of the Color Orange			Xanthophobia Fear of the Color Yellow			Chlorophobia Fear of the Color Green
Cyanophobia Fear of the Color Blue			Porphyrophobia Fear of the Color Purple			Leukoophobia Fear of the Color White			Melanophobia Fear of the Color Black

 
 

Common and Strange Phobia Color Association

 

Coulrophobia - The fear of clowns.

The fear of clowns is not uncommon among children, but is also sometimes found in teenagers and adults as well. One of the most well known and totally creepy clowns is Pennywise from Stephen King's 1990 film IT . It usually appears as Pennywise the Dancing Clown before taking the form of whatever its child victim most greatly fears.

 

Ablutophobia - The fear of washing or bathing.

The horror classic Psycho probably helped create this phobia. The shower scene is commonly rated as one of the scariest moments in movie history.