If you haven't caught wind already, 'Elements' by Lisa Clair (lisadale69) is our winner of the Color-A-Plaid Shirt Contest by Betabrand + COLOURlovers. 

To be noted: I [mollybermea] am not responsible for Lisa's palette combination. I simply needed it in palette form for a badge in this post.

Share this Post

Tweet

Congratulations to Lisa for her fantastic design!

Here's what she gets:

- A $100 Betabrand gift certificate.
- Recognition on our Web site.
- A Betabrand plaid flannel shirt based on her design — the very first of the batch that we're selling this Fall! Each shirt will have her name on the label (see below).

 WOW, 5,000+ Submissions!

Betabrand wants to thank the COLOURlovers community for the more than 5,000 design submissions they received as well as a big thanks to everyone who voted - five (5) voters also won something special.  Check out Betabrand's announcement here.

"We love collaborating in order to bring new expertise and fresh perspective to Betabrand's daily commitment to invention and this has been one of the most satisfying collaborations we've been involved with to date. We can't wait to see the finished flannel shirts this Fall and we're looking forward to keeping in touch with the COLOURlovers community." - Jared :: Head of Design at Betabrand

If you're just now tuning in, check out the initial contest post, plus here were our nine (9) finalists. That about covers it. Looking forward to the next one!

Betabrand, an online-only clothing company that produces limited-edition batches of clothing and accessories, recently paired up with COLOURlovers in the contest, Color-A-Plaid Shirt Contest by Betabrand + COLOURlovers. The contest turned out to be a huge success with over 5,000 entries!

Share this Post

Tweet

To enter the contest, COLOURlovers simply had to color a pre-picked plaid pattern - Betabrand2, which had been created by one of our very own Lovers, sec9586. After coloring the pattern it produced a plaid shirt mockup of the finished product.

VOTE HERE AT BETABRAND

The contest is closed and nine finalists were chosen by the Betabrand design team. Voting on these nine selections will be open until NOON (12pm PST) Monday, August 22, 2011.

The Finalists

Betabrand chose the finalists not by the amount of LOVES each pattern/palette got. Simply because this would have been unfair. COLOURlovers had added the ability to LOVE the designs and share them for the fun of the contest.

"Our design team narrowed it down to 9 finalists not based on the number of loves on Colourlovers - because patterns that were created at the beginning of the contest would have an unfair advantage to those created toward the end. As for not picking a winner, but rather narrowing it down to 9, we decided to do that because we were so thrilled with the volume and quality of submissions that we wanted to keep the love going!" - Jared @ Betabrand

The nine finalists in no particular order...

Hipster Plaid by bcrider

cloud nine by martino

*colour hunter* by Sunny21327

Some of you may already know our own sec9586, some of you may have just heard of her as the designer of the Betabrand plaid pattern, "Betabrand2" in our contest, "Color a Plaid Shirt Contest by Betabrand + COLOURlovers". Either way, we're featuring her today so you can get to know her even better!

Shawna Crouch, aka "sec9586", is the owner / operator of CrouchDesign. She attended Murray State University, where she graduated with a BS in Studio Art/Graphic Design in 2009, and specializes primarily in print design. Along with her designing day job, she runs a small shop on Zazzle as CrouchDesign, where she offers freelance design services. She also has an Etsy shop,  AquaNetNightmare, set to reopen September 1st, 2011 which will offer jewelry, cards, invitations, stationary and drawings.

Shawna continually uses COLOURlovers in every which way for both work and fun. Let's take a peek at how she does it...

Have you ever wanted to apply your color design abilities to a real-life product? Well here's your big opportunity! Rev up your color coordination skills and become the next palette designer for a plaid shirt offered through Betabrand! You'll get the unique opportunity to color a plaid pattern, see the design in action (applied to a template shirt) and the possibility of having your colors picked for print. How cool is that?!

Betabrand is an online-only clothing company based in San Francisco that produces unique designs in limited-edition batches every week. They make Cordarounds, Japants, DARPA hoodies, Farmer's Market backpacks, disco pants, and much, much more.

Share this Post

Tweet

Ready, Set, Contest Time!

We've had our very own, sec9586 create a pattern template for a new plaid flannel shirt that Betabrand plans to release in two versions for the 2011 holiday season. Betabrand has already chosen the colors for one version - the other is up to you!

How it works...

Easy, color the Betabrand plaid pattern template, Betabrand2.

Your colored pattern will automatically appear with the rest of the entries on the contest gallery page. You may color as many versions of the pattern template as you like.

If your colors are chosen...

The Betabrand design team will select one winner, who'll receive the following:

• - A real-life finished plaid flannel shirt;
• - Your COLOURlovers user name on the shirt label (for this 2011 production run - see above image);
• - $100 Betabrand Gift Card;
• - Recognition on the Betabrand web site and in all company communications; this includes photo of the winner in his/her winning shirt (optional).

The contest runs August 2nd - 11th (2011). Anyone who submits an entry will receive a coupon code for 20% OFF any Betabrand product - offer only valid during the contest timeline.

View the Contest Gallery

Color this plaid pattern template to enter (Betabrand2)

Business or fan pages on Facebook are becoming increasingly used by small businesses. They allow for exposure to prospective customers as well as continued communication to current clientele, so their popularity is pretty justified!

If you're looking to create a fan page for your small business, your best bet is to present a polished experience for your fans (and potential fans) by designing a landing page for your profile. It’s a chance for you to tell users what you’re about, what you’re doing on Facebook, and ultimately why they should “like” you. We had the pleasure of creating just such a page for our client, Sterling Finance Company.

There’s no doubt that it’s valuable, but creating that page also presents you with a number of variables to decide on. This post explores several solutions via our favorite topic at COLOURlovers: Color!

Strap your COLOUR goggles on, this is how the game is played:

Colors and palettes will be posted for you to match whatever from the web or your own camera.

Rules:

2. Hex values must match as closely as possible to the colors posted.
3. You must submit images in the comments.
4. You do NOT need to link/reference your finds.
5. To win, you must be the first to submit on that color or palette (must be a finished palette).
6. You must attach/link the Badge (only ones used in this post count) along with the image of the item in the comments submission.
7. Single Color Hunt earns you a COLOURlovers Swag Button.
8. Palette Hunt earns you a COLOURlovers T-Shirt!

ONLY ONE WINNER PER BADGE.

Single Color Hunt

Find a single item or group of items for a color swatch. Winner will get a COLOURlovers Swag Button!

We're throwing a contest for the best Mothers Day Floral Pattern Template design. Winner will receive $15 - ImageKind.com Bucks!

ImageKind is a community for artists to create and sell their work in many forms of print. Their goal is to develop an online art experience that provides both consumers and artists with an outlet for sharing, creating and buying art (from a digital file).

COLOURlovers is linked up with imagekind which allows you to easily import your COLOURlovers.com colors, palettes and patterns over to imagekind with the click of a button.

You MUST be the original creator of any colors, palettes and patterns in the COLOURlovers.com system to be able to import them to imagekind. If you are the original creator and are allowed to upload them to imagekind, you will see the section, BUY THIS PATTERN, on your item profile (fabric goes to Spoonflower.com, Artwork to imagekind.com).

It's a pretty neat deal! You can get your lovely patterns printed on canvas, posters or even framed prints.

Contest Details

Design a brand spank'n new Floral Template - Must be dated on or after today, May 3rd, 2011. Designing a template is not the same as coloring a template. You will need to use Seamless (COLOURlovers Pattern Maker).

You may submit as many new templates OR variations of your colored template as you would like (sometimes the paint-job makes a difference).

Add the finished and colored badge(s) to the comments - if you don't know how, ask me via love notes.

Get as many LOVES as you can before the end of day (11:59 AM PM PST) Saturday, May 7th, 2011. Winning colored template will receive $15 at ImageKind.com.

Floral - Can be display anything with: vines, flowers, buds, leaves, garden (am I missing anything here?). Can be abstract, mosaic or traditional as long as it pertains to some sort of floral appeal.

Clarification Updates (May 5th, 2011):

To try to eliminate some confusion I have answered some of these questions in the comments...

1.) I will add up ALL LOVES from both the Pattern Template AND the Colored Templates (your's or otherwise related to THAT template). Anything under that template will count.

2.) Post your submissions HERE in the COMMENTS section (below post)

3.) You must be the original creator of the Template.

*Thanks and maybe I'll run our next challenge a little smoother! :) You have until Saturday at midnight (PST) to contribute!*

Header Pattern and Palette:

Sample Pattern (in post screenshot):

Of the many word-based games played on ColourLovers, one of the newest is HAIKU PALETTES & POETIC PATTERNS where Lovers create palettes and poems at the same time from the words in the color names. The group began in January 2011 and quickly grew to 20 members in its first few days. Membership has more than doubled in less than the three to four months since the group was launched.

The Autumn Queen HPP

by Luna Rose

Upon rainbow throne
Bright and bold - The Autumn Queen
A sight to behold

April is National Poetry Month - A note from the editor

The month of April has many national celebrations, one of those being National Poetry Month. Before we draw this month to a close, we want to feature one of our most recent, popular groups, the HPP, managed by ketisse, a COLOURlover who is very passionate about writing and poetry. I personally think that it is amazing how she has invented a way for COLOURlovers to work with color, pattern and palettes to create poetry - the process is truly intriguing!

Today, the group currently boasts:

• 178 COLORS
  
• 179 PALETTES
  
• 184 PATTERNS
  
• 67 LOVERS

I hope you enjoy learning about the group itself and learning how to create a Haiku through palettes. ketisse has put together a very through guest post about her group and the creation process.

- Molly Bermea / Community Curator & Blog Editor

The way that Apple has built it's product line off extreme minimalism both in color and design has always been intriguing to look back on. It becomes such a huge deal when they decide to add any sort of color to a particular product design. So this morning when I woke up and started slimming down my inbox, I couldn't help but click on the iPad 2 Release simply for the main showcase image...