This is a guest post by Speakin_Colors.

The Robin Redbreast

Among the many animals associated with Christmas, there is one which features extensively on cards, wrapping paper, cake decorations and crackers: the Robin Redbreast. The robin appears in many Christmas motifs even though it is extremely rare to see a robin at Christmastime since it is not precisely a winter animal. So why is it so popular? The answer lies in its red breast:

foxypar4

”The robin has become strongly associated with Christmas, taking a starring role on many a Christmas card since the mid-19th century. The Robin has also appeared on many Christmas postage stamps. An old British folk tale seeks to explain the Robin's distinctive breast. Legend has it that when Jesus was dying on the cross, the Robin, then simply brown in colour, flew to his side and sang into his ear in order to comfort him in his pain. The blood from his wounds stained the Robin's breast, and thereafter all Robins got the mark of Christ's blood upon them. An alternate legend has it that its breast was scorched fetching water for souls in Purgatory. The association with Christmas, however, more probably arises from the fact that postmen in Victorian Britain wore red uniforms and were nicknamed "Robin"; the Robin featured on the Christmas card is an emblem of the postman delivering the card”. - wikipedia

What's the most colorful part of your holiday?

Over indulging (mostly on wine) relatives?...Getting the same gift you got last year, and still having found no use for the last one?...The mound of wrapping paper headed for the landfill?...Forgetting to get a gift for one of your nieces, cousins, siblings?...Holiday sweaters!?

There certainly are many to consider. For me, it's the extravagant  christmas light displays and ~adorning~ lawn ornaments.

20 Extravagant Lighting Displays

The Brain Toad

Books

My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall

Amazon | Harper Collins Publishers

Michael Hall, a graphic artist from Minneapolis, makes his picture book debut with this colorful book where each animal is ingeniously created using only heart shapes.

Photography

In Bloom by Jackson Stakeman

Link

We know that ice crystals are clear and snow is white, but if we take a closer look at snowflakes (or snow crystals) it can give us a new perspective into the colorful world. Luckily for us we have the internet, and with the help of snowcrystal.com we can further explore these physical marvels.

Is it really true that no two snowflakes are alike?

The short answer to the question is yes -- it is indeed extremely unlikely that two complex snowflakes will look exactly alike. It's so extremely unlikely, in fact, that even if you looked at every one ever made you would not find any exact duplicates.

The long answer is a bit more involved -- it depends on just what you mean by "alike," and on just what you mean by "snowflake."

Snow White

Snow, the white stuff, without it there'd be no white christmas, or  white blanket, but why do a few clear (translucent) ice crystals bunched together look white at all?

We all know the basics of visual color perception; light frequencies travel around and run into things causing them to be absorbed, scattered, or pass right through. The outcome: the frequencies left over make it back to our eye and are interpreted by the brain which reveals before our eyes those beautiful colors we all love so much. Amazing.

Grant MacDonald

So, why is snow white? When white sun light hits snow there are so many pockets of air and ice crystals that it causes a diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum scattering every wave length right back at us, and the combination of all color frequencies appears white.

To all the food that didn't get eaten the first time around: colors, palettes and patterns inspired by leftovers.

Palettes

We have more than 600k seamless background patterns and more than 1 million color palettes... Why aren't more sites using our API to give their users beautiful options for their profiles? Sounds like a no-brainer right? Well, I met Evan Williams (@ev) from twitter a few weekends ago and I presented this idea to him. He was open to it, but Twitter was super busy working on other features... BUT if we built it he'd definitely check it out. Well, Ev... Here she is!

Introducing... Themeleon for Twitter. Custom Themes by COLOURlovers

Ok... So he likes it... He really likes it!

@ev "Holy crap, this is rad: @COLOURlovers built a Twitter theme designer: http://colourlovers.com/themeleon/twitter"

So does Twitter!
@Twitter "Can't get enough of the @COLOURlovers app! A slick customization tool for your Twitter background. #appwednesday"

A Beautiful Twitter Profile in 3 Simple Steps:

1.) Login to Twitter

2.) Choose your background (pattern or photo) and your colors

3.) Save your settings. & Share your work

Browse Your COLOURlovers Creations & Faves

Want to create your theme using your own palettes and patterns from COLOURlovers?

Login and browse your New & Top patterns or palettes as well as your Favorite New & Top.

Use the Tools Luke!

-Apply. Although the wording is a bit cumbersome. You can apply the colors you have in your pattern to your color settings below & you can also apply colors you have in your settings below to a pattern template. *Click each of the buttons, it'll be obvious what they do... and then help us improve the wording on them :)*

-Shuffle. Click the button to give you some inspiration by mixing up the order of the colors in your settings area.

-Undo. Oops. Didn't mean to click there? Not sure what you were thinking with that last color choice? No worries, just click the undo button. (You can click it more than once to correct a spree of mis-clicking.)

-Drag & Drop. Click and drag any of the 5 color squares in your pattern preview or down in your color settings to change their order.

*New* DHTML Color Picker

While building themeleon we decided it was time to give our DHTML color picker a refresh. We not only updated the aesthetic we made it a bit bigger so the (S) Saturation and (V) Brightness sliders can fully display all 255 steps. We'll soon be releasing the code for this picker under the same terms as our previous picker to be freely used in any of your projects. (We did remove CMYK from this version for now as the conversions weren't working perfectly. It will find its way back in when we have it locked down.)

Use Themeleon on Your Site

Have a site that lets users customize their profile or create themes? Want to plug into the COLOURlovers API and use themeleon on your site? Let's talk! Hit me up @dariusmonsef or us @COLOURlovers... or just use our contact form ;)

Theme Leon? What does that mean?
No, no... Thee-mee-lee-uhn. Like Chameleon. Get it? As in a chameleon can change its colors... and you can change your theme colors... We're so proud of ourselves on this one. We didn't even go with our old trusty and take the first few lettes to make up a name... COlor PAlette SOftware (COPASO) & PHoto COlor PAlettes (PHOTOCOPA).

From the classic Yellow cabs of New York City and Black cabs of London to the new Pink cabs in Mexico, it seems there's a different color cab for every city.

While many taxis colors are chosen to be easily recognizable to those who need a ride, sometimes cabs are color coded depending on the company they run under, like in Chicago which has no official cab color.

Sometimes cab colors can be protected under law, as in this case from Boston.

In Mexico, they went from Yellow to Green & White to White with a Bright Red stripe around them, and as of late, Burgundy Red and Gold. There is even a 'women only' Pink cab company.

In Shanghai only companies with more than a 1000 cabs can choose their own color leaving the city with a select group of 8 colors.

Taxi Colors From Around the World

New York City

kyradk

London

kenjonbro

Wow! What an honor.  It's so amazing how many of you have taken the time to share your color ideas & inspiration with us.  COLOURlovers continues to make me very proud to be part of such a great community.  Our 1,000,000th palette is a great milestone and we're excited and inspired to continue sharing the color love with you all.  You're all so awesome.

Some Color Palette Milestones...

#1	#1 (Community Palette)
#100	#10,000
#100,000	#1,000,000
#999,999	#1,000,001

But our 1,000,000 wouldn't have been possible without our 999,999th... and every palette that has been lovingly shared on this site.  Thank you all so much.

All 1,000,000 Color Palettes...

(Each pixel is a color strip in a palette) Click to see larger version.

Some Interesting Color Coincidences

One of my favorite things to watch is the interesting coincidences that pop up when you have people from all over the world naming colors and putting them in palettes.  Some fun stuff in there... go have a look and laugh.

What Do We Do With So Many Palettes?

Ok, so that's a lot of color... We're working hard on the code for Version 4 of COLOURlovers that will make it easier to find the color inspiration you're looking for, to share your color ideas with others and to make even more palettes.

Make Something Awesomely Colorful!

We have an API... Who knows what awesome stuff you might build with access to 1 million palettes.  Some things that have already been built:

Codename Cuttlefish by serostar

DekafLovers by VisualRinse

Pulse by Michael Mahemoff

Desktop Color Finder by Levi McCallum

Circle Growth 1 from Alex Stanciu on Vimeo

Your Palettes... Your Stories: Share Why You Create

In the comments below, share a bit of your story with us.  I'd love to hear your answers to these questions. (They might help us explain to new lovers just why this place is so great.)
Why do you create palettes?

What do you like about it?

If you use palettes from COLOURlovers, what for?

What makes COLOURlovers such a great creative community?

Thank you all so much.  I'm looking forward to the next million, 10 million... and every other colorful milestone we'll reach together.

+Darius (COLOURlover)

Chicago

A Chicago-style hot dog is a steamed Red Hot Chicago, Vienna Beef or David Berg hot dog topped with sliced/diced/wedged tomatoes, cucumbers, both a dill pickle spear and sweet pickle relish (a particularly bright green style of relish, referred to as "nuclear green" relish), yellow mustard directly on the sausage, pickled sport peppers, and is finished with celery salt, and served on a steamed poppy seed bun. Chicago-style never includes ketchup, though some vendors offer small packets of the condiment for those wanting to add it. Although outside Chicago this style of hot dog is universally associated with the city, equally popular within Chicago is a "Maxwell Street Polish" sausage, usually served on a plain bun with fried or grilled onions and mustard. Both variations are becoming readily available through the nationwide expansions of such Chicago area fast food eateries as Portillo's.

Shanubi

Maine

The most popular variety of hot dog in Maine is one made with natural casing. The casing is colored red, and are commonly referred to as red hot dogs, though are more commonly known as red snappers.

Cake and Commerce