At the end of 2009 we launched a fun app to let you the people define and share what color you saw representing 2010. Well this year isn't over and we still want you to name the color you feel best embodies this year... and to sweeten the deal, we're going to give away a huge box of color goodies to 5 random color trendsetters that name their color.

See, we at COLOURlovers think the smartest and most talented people in the world really do set the color trends... they create the next great designs that shape our creative landscape and they vote with their dollars and purchase the colors they love... So we want their option, YOUR opinion. Name your color of 2010 and win awesome COLOURloving stuff.

Name Your Color of 2010. Click Here.

All you need to do is use ColoroftheYear.com - to name & describe your Color of 2010.
Your thoughtful entry will get you in the running for one of those 5 goodie boxes... and if you share your color via Facebook or Twitter, you'll double your chances and get a second entry in the drawing.

Win an Awesome Creative Goodie Box Worth $200+

We'll award 5 random trendsetters with a creative goodie box that includes:

				ColorSchemer Software ($49.99) The best professional color software from creative folks. The new ColorSchemer let's you browse palettes on COLOURlovers and a future update will let you start making and publishing palettes to COLOURlovers too.
				COLOURlovers Sponsorship (x2) ($40.00) We'll give you two sponsored memberships to COLOURlovers. Use one and give another to a friend. It lasts all year... and we're adding more and more great benefits for sponsors.
				COLOURlovers T-Shirt (x2) ($36.00) You share the color love all the time... Now you can wear the color love too! You'll get our logo shirt and our color love blind shirt.
				Spoonflower Gift Certificate ($50) Have you made some beautiful patterns with Seamless? Well, why not order that pattern on some fabric from our friends at Spoonflower?
				Action Method - Journal ($17.50) Take notes about all your wonderful ideas with an Action Journal. http://www.creativesoutfitter.com/Products/Action-Journal/19
				Moo Mini Card Pack($20) Moo prints mini cards with a selection of some great palettes from COLOURlovers... but you could also put something else beautiful on your cards... like your face. You decide!

Name a Color in 5 Easy Steps.

As you complete one step, the next will automatically give you suggestions to help you find your color.
1. Describe Your Color
2. Choose Your Hue
3. Set Your Mood
4. Select Your Color
5. Woohoo! You Found Your Color

Now all you need to do now is name your color. Share it with your friends and post the badge in the comments below too.

(Only 1 entry per person will count towards the drawing, but you're free to name more than 1 color of 2010. You have to name your color by September 9th... We'll announced the winners September 10th.
*And make sure you login somehow otherwise we won't know how to get your your goodie box.*)

Black is such a mysterious color that a wide variety of words can describe. For me, it's always been beautiful (even though it has been described as not a color at all) and I have accumulated many items that are  black.

Now, silver is another intriguing color, it is shiny and comes off as modern. It is fun and playful, and pared with black it seems polished, a brilliant unification, don't you think?

ice cream set | candleholder | pillow | globe | kitty flashlight | lamp

room: 1 & 2

When a social network like Twitter allows a user to select a theme to represent themselves in the digital world, that user is choosing to identify their digital persona with colors... And we wanted to look at who chooses what colors... If the world is made up of people and those people have a color preference... what then is the color of Texas? What color are mothers? What color are we?

By looking at the more than 1 Million people who have used our Themeleon tool to design their Twitter Profile in the past 3 months, we were able to paint a picture of the world connecting colors to locations and profile data. Below is a visual guide to what we found: What we noticed first was that a huge majority of people don't wander that far off from Twitter's default light blue colors... and then we went digging deeper.

*A little note regarding the "World vs. U.S." - We know the map is of the United States and does not represent the world, we only focused the map part of the infographic on the U.S. so we had a manageable amount of data to work with and geolocate. The keywords, male & female and video sections below all use data from around the world*

Click The Image Below for the High Res Version

A Colorful Tour of the Themeleon World

We took the colors from 100,000 profiles designed with Themeleon and geolocated them to the designers location. Although it is a little dark in this compressed video... Each location has a spectrum strip of colors... the more colors from a certain area, the taller the strip. (The US is well defined, Europe and East Asia... although you can see some outlines of other countries too.)

Colors of the Social Web from CHROMAom on Vimeo.

I'm only slightly stepping out of my art/design role with this fashion-related blog post. Enter Forage, a new line of mid-century inspired bow ties. Brains behind this classy-quirky line are Shauna & Steven who run a delightful Etsy shop, somethingshidinghere. Forage draws heavy inspiration from industry greats like Louis Kahn, Charles Eames, and Le Corbusier, people whose work has definitely made an impression on my tastes too. I mean look at all these awesome patterns and colors...Beautiful, right? Forage didn't skip out on any of the other details either, the packaging, photography & styling and the craftsmanship are all obviously top-notch too. I'm wishing I was A) a dude or B) able rock one of these in some way. These ties are debuting for purchase at the Curiousity Shoppe.

Dribbble, "show and tell for designers, developers and other creatives," has been getting a lot of play around the web as of late. It seems everyone is trying to get a shot at an invite to this quickly developing design showcase and community. The chatter around the web seems to agree that while not much different than LogoPond, Coroloft, Behance, unmatchedstyle, or the plethora of other css design & logo galleries where you can find up-to-date inspiration and get feedback, where Dribble has really scored is–and not with their fun basketball references either,  but with their "social functionality and active community."

Sites likes these, and like our very own community here at COLOURlovers, can be a valuable resource for those looking for feedback on their recent projects, whether it be a new logo, sign, app, business card, letterhead, etc.

If you're a lover here looking for some feedback try starting a forum post and include samples from different aspects of your color identity to give some context to those whose help you are seeking. This will allow others to give the most useful feedback and help keep your identity consistent. There is always a lover out there willing to lend a hand to those seeking assistance and they can be found on many sites across the web.

Clean design, smooth functionality and a color sorter!

As suggested by ycc2106, Highwireart & elibby, in the comments of our last fine set of new seamless patterns, and liddle_r in the forum post August 2010: Fabulous pattern discoveries, here are (only) some of the great recent patterns coming out of Seamless.

For some more original patterns follow along and post your own in the forum thread Original Pattern Designs! started by ManiacPlz or follow the real-time fun by browsing the most recent patterns to watch for those new designs popping up periodically amongst the always dazzling color variations of the already created patterns.

"The minute I saw this blog, I was like HEY! Real life versions of our patterns. =)" - leslie

We recently came across the inspiring work of Megan Geckler, and ycc2106's Seamless interpretation of I can tell you how this ends, 2007, it's fantastic, and what's even more fantastic is the group Interpretation Fun focused on that very exercise of interpreting inspiring photos into new patterns.

Original Pattern By: ycc2106

With summer comes amazingly interesting hues. Orange is a great summer color and I have been seeing it pop up here and there, mainly with clothing rather than decor items. Though, there are some great home accessories that are orange and white. White is perfect because of its calming factor and is also help one to stay cool, so it balances out orange very well. What do you think about orange and white?

clock |  footed bowl | chandelier | pillow | towel | napkin

Interior 1 & 2

Wicker, bamboo, rattan, oh my! With summer in full swing, rattan furniture is a great way to bring a warm-weather vibe indoors...

First things first: Rattan is the name for nearly 600 species of palms that are native to tropical regions of Africa and Asia. Rattans are also superficially similar to bamboo, though unlike bamboo, rattan stems are solid. The inner core of rattan can be separated and worked into wicker, which is a generic term used to describe any product that is made by weaving together stems or vines. The word "wicker" has Scandinavian origins, but the use of woven vines to make furniture dates back as far as the days of Egyptian pharaohs. Got it? Good.

While wildly popular in the 70's, wicker furniture first became all the rage in England and America during the 17th and 18th centuries, and it's coming back with a vintage vengeance!

(Domino, eBay, 1st Dibs, Mecox Gardens)

Rattan or bamboo bar carts are one of my very favorite things. Ever. To tell the truth, I try to incorporate some sort of bar into practically every room I decorate (including bedrooms and bathrooms) and this variety is incredibly versatile. Obviously they work in a hallway, but a vintage rattan cart would also look stunning on a screened-in sunporch during a Derby party-- top it with an ice bucket, a few bottles of bourbon, and some julep cups...instant Southern charm. Or perhaps you'd prefer to park one in your bathroom and fill the shelves with freshly laundered towels and soaps wrapped in Chinese paper. Or you could use a rattan bar as your bedside table and accent it with a small brass jewelry box and a fab lamp.

With blue and yellow I automatically think collegiate, most likely being that these are the colors of the University of Michigan. Even though I tend to correlate the two, it is easy to get the colors outside their scholastic association by using different variations of the hues. To prove this I have stumbled upon some charming accents as well as a couple of aesthetically pleasing interiors.

pillow | tea towel | plate | bottles | bath towel | post-its | pendant | vase